Super Mario: the Strike of Tatanga
by Barakao1
Summary: Tatanga, from Super Mario Land, is back to invade the Mushroom Kingdom.  He abducts Princess Peach's father, the King, in an attempt to conquer the kingdom.  Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Daisy embark on an action-comedy/adventure to rescue the abducted King.
1. Chapter 1

This story represents what I think would be a terrific story for a new Mario game.

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Far away from Earth, the Mushroom Kingdom existed, as the capitol land of planet Fungai. Mario and Luigi called Fungai the Mushroom World. It was similar to planet Earth, in its levels of oxygen, and therefore green plant life. Yet in Fungai, it was the fungus, the mushroom, which over time became the basis of dominant life, rather than apes.

Mario had been here in Fungai for 30 years now. Really? 30 years? He couldn't believe it had been so long already. He scratched his head as he thought about how much time had gone by.

"Luigi! Can you believe we've been here, in the Mushroom World, for 30 years now?" he asked.

"Mario, we've been over this a thousand times. We've been here for 20 years."

"Well, anyway. I'm done fixing that bathroom faucet. It was nothing. Just needed a new screw or two due to rust in the metal. It happens at times with screws, if they get wet and never dried. Well . . . good as new now."

Mario and Luigi sat still for a while, thinking in silence, as they often did, when they lost their motivation to do things. 30 years now. Maybe they could go back to Earth. Back to the far-away land of New York, in planet Earth, where they had grown up. Back to Brooklyn. But then again, they would be going back to the difficulties of trying to get by in New York. Constant threats of eviction. Letters in the mail with red letters. Desperate hours of plumbing spent trying to make enough money to keep up with rent, utilities, water bill, electric, phone bill. Who knew what other types of bills existed in Earth by now?

Earth was a difficult place to live. In the Mushroom Kingdom, the weather was always better. It was always sunny. Mario and Luigi always had the option of free housing. They had, after all, saved the princess from King Koopa, 30 years ago. At that time, Princess Peach Toadstool, saved by Mario, restored all the mushroom-people in the kingdom, transformed into brick and stone by King Koopa, back to their true selves. The entire kingdom was saved by two plumbers from Earth, and the princess' father, the King, was nothing but grateful.

"Eviction notice," Luigi said, going through today's mail. "Coupons. Hold onto this one. This is important. 20% off."

"Eviction notice? I don't trust you. You're lying! Let me see that." Mario snatched the paper up, and looked it over.

DEAR MARIO:

You have not paid your rent in months. I swear, if you think you're going to live for the rest of your life rent-free, under the orders of that idiot King, you are wrong. That princess was rescued 30 years ago. You are not above the law, and that includes landlord/tenant law. If you don't have your backlog of 12 months rent paid by the 30th of this month, YOU AND YOUR DEADBEAT BROTHER ARE OUT OF HERE.

FOR EVER.

- Landlord

P.S. Ever

"No way!" Mario yelled. "Even here, everything's difficult now? Come on, Luigi, let's go live in the princess' castle."

Mario spun a wooden hat rack repeatedly. Red? Blue? Metal Cap? Brushing his brown hair with his head, he realized that he was gradually going bald. He picked the red hat to wear. Once he was done, Luigi used the lower half of the hat rack, and picked a green cap to wear.

Mario used his right hand to slide open a closet door, replacing his own reflection in the glass panel with the sight of all his clothes hung on hangers. What would he wear today? Blue overalls over red? Red overalls over blue? Black overalls over red? Brown overalls over red? White-over-red Fire Suit? Too many choices. Finally, he picked black over red, and he walked with his clothes into the bathroom.

Luigi looked through his own choices of clothes. Blue overalls over green. Indigo, a color too purple to be blue, yet too blue to be purple, over green. Brown overalls over green. White overalls over green. Black overalls over green. Quite a selection. Finally, he picked black over green.

Mario stepped out of the bathroom, wearing red and black. "NICE!" Luigi said. "Looking snazzy, brother!"

Luigi stepped into the bathroom, and a second later stepped out wearing green and black. "Stylin'!" Mario said. "Okay, let's go to the castle now."

Side by side, Mario and Luigi, wearing black overalls over red or green, left the house and embarked on the walk to the castle. "We're off to see the princess!" Mario sang. "The wonderful princess of -"

"Stop singing, stop singing," Luigi said, and then it was over.

The green transportation pipe that led to Princess Peach's castle was still damaged, and under repairs. It looked like old food that had long since gone rotten. "Forget the pipes," Luigi said. "Let's take the go-karts."

In a short time, Mario and Luigi were behind the wheels of their twin red and green go-karts, starting up the engines and slamming on the gas pedals. They drove quickly through the roads of the Royal Raceway to reach Princess Peach's castle. The magnificent gray castle was visible from a far distance away. It could be seen throughout the entire Mushroom Kingdom.

Once they finished the drive to the castle, they took a moment to stop and admire the structure from the outside. Driving the go-karts on ahead down the yellow ground, they continued to drive over the gray stone bridge that was built over the water. They nodded their heads to the two mushroom-people guards who stood on both sides of the bridge. Stopping just short of the castle doors, they both hopped off, and turned off their engines.

"Bringing things like go-karts from Earth to the Mushroom Kingdom was the best idea you ever had, brother!" Luigi said.

"Yeah," Mario said. "It's just too bad we had to start. You know. Drilling for oil and all. But that's another story."

"Go-karts should be a fine stepping stone before they learn cars."

"Cars? I don't think so. I think we should stop at go-karts. Let's get everyone driving go-karts, and leave it at that."

"Everyone already does drive go-karts," Luigi replied.

Now, as the doors to the castle were opened by two guards, the two plumbers from Earth walked their go-karts inside.

Before long, Princess Peach had met Mario inside her castle, and Princess Daisy, of Sarasaraland, had met with Luigi. Both plumbers had landed princesses as girlfriends. Now, all four were in the same room at once.

Princess Daisy had left Sarasaraland some time ago, to be with Luigi, in the Mushroom Kingdom. Sarasaraland was a land in a far-away planet, in a distant galaxy. Just as Mario and Luigi had abandoned Earth, Daisy had abandoned Sarasaraland, all three in favor of the Mushroom Kingdom.

So many places out there . . . so many worlds. Mario's head spun as he thought about it for a moment. Zebes was another planet he had learned of. The Metroid species of jellyfish-like alien was native to there. The Space Junk Galaxy was littered with garbage that had found itself in gravitational orbits around things like planets and moons. So many other worlds out there . . .

But here he was, in one particular house, Princess Peach's castle, in the Mushroom Kingdom, in Fungai, the Mushroom World. This was the best place in all the galaxies of the universe to be.

Walking past the various paintings that lined the walls of Peach's castle, Mario decided that it was more important to bring revolutions of inventions to the Mushroom Kingdom, like the go-karts, than to go to other worlds. They had to be like teachers. There was so much to show the mushroom-people for their first time!

Within minutes, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were standing before a red-and-orange mushroom-shaped television set. "Here it is," Peach said to Mario. "The first fully-functioning . . . what was it called, again?"

"Television," Mario said.

"Yes, the first fully-functioning television set to be assembled in the Mushroom Kingdom. Let's watch some!"

Peach pressed the POWER button. In seconds, the black screen turned on and became a scrambled mess of black, white, and gray. Hundreds of small shapes were swimming about, while making the loud noise of static.

"Ooh! Umm . . . what's this one called?" she asked.

"Nahhh . . . it's only getting static," Mario said with a sigh. "I forgot. I gave up on this project. When was it, again? 3 months ago?"

"3 years ago, Mario."

"Right. Right." Mario sighed. "I could never figure out how to get reception working. I mean . . . I think the TV itself is OK. It just has no . . . you know. Satellites or reception towers to respond to. So it's useless."

"Oh, it's not useless!" Peach said to him. "We could call it . . . Shapes."

"It's all right," Luigi said, putting one hand on Mario's shoulder. "At least everyone in the kingdom owns a TV now. We'll get the reception figured out, somehow. Really."

_Kreee-eee-eeen!_ came a loud, high-pitched noise. The static on the TV flickered off into total blackness. Then, a series of alien symbols and letters began to flood the screen. Circles, rectangles, triangles, and long ovals overlapping one another in a dozen combinations seemed to be the core basis of the alien symbols.

"It looks like . . ." Daisy said.

The alien symbols became, instead, the purple face of Tatanga, looking at the viewer.

Tatanga's face was far too thick to be a human face. His ears were as pointy as a perfect triangle, and as large as his hands. His eyes were enormous and black. His face wore the expression of a serious man who had spent countless years in battle.

"My name is Tatanga," the purple alien said in English.

A hushed silence had already taken over Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy. None of the four knew what to say or do next.

"I am from Sarasaraland, a planet off the edge of a galaxy many light-years from yours. I have challenged countless planets to conquest . . . and I have won every challenge. All the galaxies that know my name fear me. As the newest arrival in the Mushroom Kingdom, I hereby demand that you take me to your leader. Know this: whomever takes me to this leader shall gain my favor."

Princess Peach looked at Mario and said: "You had good timing, getting here right now!"

Mario nodded his head in agreement. "I did come here at the right time," he said.

"So, it's . . . kind of a good thing the landlord kicked us out?" Luigi asked him.

Mario shook his head: no.

"He demands to know where the leader is," Daisy said. "Who exactly does he mean?"

"My father," Peach explained. "The King of this kingdom, the capitol kingdom of the world. My father is the one he wants."

"Tatanga doesn't seem to know where to look," Luigi pointed out. "He's asking someone to take him to the leader."

"It's only a matter of time before Tatanga finds him," Daisy explained. "So many people out there. One of them will certainly tell him."

"There's not much time," Peach said. "Follow me." Peach led the way, followed by Daisy, Mario, and Luigi. Walking through the many doors, staircases, and hallways of the castle, Peach walked to the kitchen. Above the refrigerator, a cupboard contained just the right tools she now needed. Peach jumped up into the air, stayed put for a few seconds, and opened up the two cupboard doors. White and green veggies of various sizes and shapes rested in here, as well as glass beakers. She looked around, and in a couple more seconds fell back to the floor. She leaped up again, stayed put for a few seconds, and began grabbing things out of the cupboard.

"Here! Take these!" she yelled at Mario, Luigi, and Daisy, tossing the veggies to them to catch. They were not only edible, they were also vicious as weapons when thrown hard enough. Mario and Luigi stuffed three veggies away into a secret hiding place.

Princess Peach also retrieved a glass beaker from the cupboard, which she threw against the wall to break it apart. An orange door now became a part of the wall. Peach pushed the door open, to find herself, and Mario, in the middle of her castle.

"Come on!" she said, leading the way. "We have to find him before Tatanga's minions do!" So the three people followed her quickly.

Peach made a quick left turn, disappearing into a doorway. Mario chased after her, running into a hallway, followed by Luigi and Daisy, while all three followers were holding the combat veggies. As they both ran on, Peach opened another doorway and led the way to the throne room, where she suspected her father might be.

But Mario and Peach were just barely too late. Tatanga now stood before the King, holding the man up with a sword made of red laser light.

Mario gulped. "Please don't!" he yelled. "Take me instead!"

Princess Peach's father, the King, was perspiring. Tatanga turned his head, and glared at Mario. His face may have been alien in shape, more round in the head and face, and more triangular in the ears, yet Tatanga had an attitude like many men who had ruled in human history. Tatanga had both of his eyes fixed on Mario.

"Do you really wish to take his place?" Tatanga asked.

Now it was Mario's turn to perspire.

Luigi gulped. "Mario, don't!" he yelled. Daisy grabbed Luigi by the arm.

Mario and Tatanga were still looking each other eye-to-eye. At least the King was left alone now. Tatanga's minions - his servants, all dressed in gold and orange - were circling around the King at once with their weapons.

"Let the King go! Now!" Mario yelled. He quickly jumped up into the air, and, with gravity, he fell back to the floor, to land on one of the servants, knocking him to the floor. Wasting no time, Mario jumped onto the second of the two servants, rendering him finished in battle.

"Mario!" Tatanga screamed. "You have the attitude of a true warrior. But countless warriors have I slain as I have conquered the galaxies. Prepare to join them!"

Aiming his right hand at Mario, Tatanga blasted away with a red laser light, four feet in length, causing him to backflip away just in time. Luigi jumped over a red laser before it could strike him in the leg, and he thrashed his legs quickly while slowly landing from his jump. Both brothers continued to jump and flip and cartwheel away from Tatanga's oncoming barrages of red lasers.

"You'll notice I've made some adjustments to my mecha-armor!" Tatanga yelled at the two brothers. "I no longer have to hold a weapon. It's now a part of my suit! From the Toy Galaxy comes this unique concept!"

He had taken over the Toy Galaxy now?

Luigi jumped up into the air and landed on Tatanga, in the time he had taken to boast about his weapons. Mario and Luigi managed to get in several jumping attacks, before Tatanga was up on his feet again and firing away with his red lasers.

Mario took one more look at the King. He was safely walking out the door now. Thankfully, their work as his bodyguards had been successful. Quickly turning back to Tatanga, Mario yelled, "You'll never win, alien!" He hoped to distract Tatanga from the sight of the King leaving.

"How? How will you possibly beat me?" he yelled.

Mario pulled up the hidden combat veggie that he had stashed away between the red and black parts of his overalls. This combat veggie was all green in its upper half, and all white, with a black face, in the lower. Luigi pulled out a combat veggie as well, one much thinner than Mario's. "Aww!" Luigi yelled. "Why does my veggie have to be smaller?"

Mario threw his veggie at Tatanga, and Luigi did the same. Both kept in mind the finite, limited supply of combat veggies available. Each brother had a total of 3 to start with, or 6 total. With each brother having thrown one veggie so far, each one had 2 left to throw. They would have to be thrown wisely - never missing.

_Bwow! _came the sound of Tatanga's body getting struck by the veggies. Both plumbers had hit him successfully. Mario threw another veggie, a small one, and he missed. Luigi threw a big veggie, and hit Tatanga right in the torso. The spacelord was knocked back again, and both plumbers kept a mental eye on the fact that each one had a single veggie left in their supply.

"I'm not beaten yet!" Tatanga yelled, and now he began to fire away with green lasers, each one only two feet long, yet now being fired twice as fast as the first round. Mario and Luigi had even worse danger to run from now. They had to move as fast as they possibly could to avoid the incinerating touch of the lasers.

"Wait a minute! What happens to the walls?" Mario asked.

Luigi looked. Black charred marks were everywhere. They would have to figure out something later.

"If we want to pay our rent here . . . we would have to stop Tatanga," Mario said. So he looked back at the purple alien and threw his last, final veggie, striking him with another veggie. Luigi ran forth, throwing his own final veggie, and now both had to wonder what they would have done without them.

Yet Tatanga still did not seem to be beaten yet. He walked slowly, getting ready for yet another attack against the two plumbers. So there was one thing left to try. Mario and Luigi, both sensing what the other was about to do, sprang into action to grab Tatanga's two servants, dressed in white and gold, to throw at the spacelord.

_Bwow! _came the sound of Tatanga's body struck by his own servants. Finally, the alien seemed to be down.

"You beat me!" Tatanga yelled. "I can't deny it. You beat me . . . fair and square. I shall leave in peace now."

"Really? It worked?" Luigi asked. "Huh."

Tatanga walked to the skylight, the hole in the ceiling that allowed sunlight inside to reach the floor. Standing on that part of the floor, in that one beam of light from the hole in the ceiling, a white and blue beam of light overtook the entire area surrounding Tatanga's body in a three-foot radius. In seconds, his body was broken apart to pieces, and sent skyward. Then, the beam of white light died down to nothing.

"What just happened?" Luigi asked.

"Tatanga just left," Mario said. "His men beamed him back inside his ship. He's gone."

A moment of silence overcame the two as they wondered what else it was that they were forgetting to do. Wasn't there some other loose end? Some thing that they had started to do, but never finished, during the battle? Why couldn't either one of them place a word for it now? Neither Mario or Luigi could remember. "The King!" Luigi yelled. "We forgot to keep an eye on the King!"

The two plumbers ran quickly through the hallways of the castle, until they reached the front doors, which they kicked open to run outside. Running to the gray stone moat, over the deep-blue water, they were still chasing tirelessly after the King.

"Wait! Wait! Come back!" Mario cried out.

"You don't have to run anymore!" Luigi said.

"What? What?" the King asked, slowing down his run to a jog, already exhausted. "But I thought you said . . ."

Mario handed him a water botle. "Here," he said. "Drink this. Look - you don't have to run anymore. We beat Tatanga. Okay?"

"DID YOU, NOW?" Tatanga asked. Mario and Luigi looked skyward. A white cloud surrounding Tatanga's enormous spaceship was parted, using technology similar to leaf blowers and vaccuum cleaners. Once enough of the white cloud was parted to reveal the spaceship, they both understood the true reason for the shadows on the ground outside the castle.

"I falsified my own defeat, and my own surrender to you two," Tatanga said, his voice ringing through the air at dozens of times its own natural volume, due to the speakers embedded on the exterior of the ship. "Now I have your leader right where I want him. Time for beaming!"

"Uhhh . . . what's beaming? I'm afraid you'll have to explain this to me," the King said. Within seconds, an enormous white and blue beam of light was cast over the King, in the entire area surrounding him in a three-foot radius.

Mario and Luigi ran at the King, hoping to push him out of the way, but they were too late. Already, the King's body was breaking apart into pieces, and rising skyward, to be reformed inside the ship.

"I have your King," came Tatanga's voice. "I am taking over the Kingdom. All who oppose my rule shall be punished severely."

Princesses Peach and Daisy were running out the front doors of the castle, and down the gray stone moat to reach Mario and Luigi. "Wait! Wait up!" Daisy yelled.

By the time the two princesses had caught up to the two plumbers, both looked skyward and saw that it was too late. The ship was moving on, and the King of the Mushroom Kingdom had been abducted by an alien.

"What are we going to do now?" Daisy yelled.

"We'll save him ourselves," Mario said. "That's what we'll do."

"How?" Daisy asked.

"How? We'll find a way to fly. It's possible. We'll find some way, in one of these lands, to reach flight. But we must travel quickly!"

"Wait!" Luigi said. "We can't travel by foot. We'll never get there. What we need . . ."

"Are the go-karts?" Mario asked.

". . . Are the GO-karts!" Luigi said.

A minute later, two go-karts were driving down the gray stone bridge over the moat, carrying two passengers per kart, four passengers total. The four adventurers - Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, with Daisy being the only one who had never yet run out into action, never yet fought enemies to save a land - were on their way to save the Mushroom Kingdom from Tatanga.

The adventure would start by driving to the Royal Raceway. It had taken a half-hour of driving to get to Peach's castle, using the Royal Raceway, earlier. Now it would likely take that same length of time to reach the next land over.

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Well, the first chapter is over. Soon enough, all four characters will be put to action.

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This story mixes together elements from several Mario games.

Super Mario Bros. - the Mushroom Kingdom setting

Super Mario Bros. 2 - Princess Toadstool being out and about in action, veggies

Super Mario Bros. 3 - the Mushroom World, global scale

Super Mario Land - Tatanga, Princess Daisy, Sarasaraland

Super Mario 64 - Peach's castle, name

Paper Mario - Mario and Luigi's modest, one-story house in the Mushroom Kingdom, a short distance from Peach's castle

Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64 - integrating the go-karts into the main world of Mario. The Royal Raceway (it leads to Peach's castle, right?).

Super Mario Galaxy - some of the "galaxies" aspect of that game, mixed with Tatanga


	2. Chapter 2

Super Mario: the Strike of Tatanga

Chapter 2

The Royal Raceway. One enormous stretch of black road, dedicated to providing a fast and convenient path to the royal castle of Princess Peach Toadstool. The Royal Raceway was a far newer invention, in the Mushroom Kingdom, compared to what the area was like 30 years prior, when it was all still just grass and hills.

Mario and Luigi came from Earth, and throughout their whole lives, they were familiar with the existence of interstate highways, freeways, toll-paying turnpikes, and other such enormous stretches of road, covering hundreds of miles, dedicated to providing fast and convenient travel. They had never really traveled outside of New York, and rarely interacted with those highways. They never really needed to learn to drive a car, in New York. However, the very idea of it, and the rare chances to get to be the passenger in a car as it drove down the highways, a short distance through the state of New York, had always been a treasure to the two boys, when they were little. They had stared out the window in awe, as Papa had yelled not to get their fingerprints on the glass. Papa had never quite seen what the two boys saw in all those car rides, their sense of magic and wonder about everything they saw out the glass windows. Papa saw nothing special. Nothing but buildings obviously racked up in financial debt.

Now, as adults, they had, years ago, taught the mushroom-people the Earth-people's way of advancing beyond dirt roads, and the many rocks that made gravel, which was painful to walk across with bare feet, to the superior method of solid black asphalt, which was painted to have solid and dotted lines with Earthly paint, in white and yellow. That was enough of a revolution, for now. The rest of the Earthly inventions - the bridges and highways and cement support beams that he remembered - could wait until some other time.

The Royal Raceway was the crowning achievement of the Mushroom Kingdom's laborers. Solid black asphalt went on for miles, providing a clear path between several points in the kingdom's land. Traveling to the castle and back was very convenient, to the people who worked in the castle and wished to travel long distances by go-kart. It was usually just used by Mario and his friends for racing, for fun. Yet, over the years, the Royal Raceway seemed to be opened up to everyone who wanted to use it, not just those who worked for the princess.

Dozens of mushroom-people were driving their go-karts through the Royal Raceway already. No longer did they have the place all to themselves, or just to race around in with their friends, as these roads had long since become completely public.

Had Mario and Luigi not expected this to be the consequence of their self-tiring efforts to teach these people go-karts, highways, and expressways? Never again would they have the freedom of zero traffic that they used to experience on the Royal Raceway. Then again, that just made it all the more of a success. Like fish in the sea, the traffic of go-karts continued to swim on down the road at the fastest speeds they could manage.

"Are they aware, yet, of what Tatanga has done?" Luigi asked.

"They've all been on the Royal Raceway for some time. None of them are aware yet," Mario said. "They'll learn in time. But until then, it's just any other day."

Luigi slammed on the gas, then came to an abrupt halt behind another go-kart. "Look, I never quite learned how to ride stick-shift, okay?" he yelled. "Or automatic, or anything really!"

"Yeah - and nobody's taught these people how to drive but themselves," Mario added.

Traffic lights, speed traps, laws, regulations, and other similar things were still not yet added to the world of the Mushroom Kingdom. The go-karts were driving chaotically. Every person seemed to want to be in the lead, driving at the head of the group. Mushroom-people were cutting each other off, driving aggressively, and getting into minor accidents.

"Yeah, the cars are not happening," Luigi said to his brother. Mario nodded his head in agreement. It was a good thing they were not experiencing the truly dangerous speeds.

A Goomba jumped down onto the road, from a branch in a tree! The Goomba snapped its jaws a couple times as the go-kart drove on past it. Finally, the Goomba leaped into Luigi's go-kart, and it snapped its jaws at the plumber and princess, both of who screamed.

"I'm coming, Luigi!" Mario said, but two brown Goombas had popped up in his own go-kart.

Luigi looked at Daisy, then back at the orange Goomba. "Sorry, pal! You've gotta go!" he yelled, pushing the Goomba back, to land on the road. He ended up squished, defeated.

"Princess. Take the wheel!" Mario yelled, and he leaped up onto the moving go-kart. His feet swung around his body and kicked the first of the two brown Goombas. Once he landed his feet back on the cart, he applied all his velocity, building up so far, into a punch that he delivered to the one remaining Goomba, who fell to the road.

The red go-kart swerved left and right, but Mario climbed back inside quickly and began to buckle his seatbelt back in. "I've got it, I've got it," he said to Peach as he took over the wheel again, just in time to drive in between two go-karts to avoid crashing into them. The two cars' horns were certainly activated.

The fast ride for survival was not over yet - it was only beginning. Now Bob-Ombs were leaping out of the trees and toward their go-karts! Luigi drove around wildly, but still the mushroom-people's karts, all of which were black, were being bombarded. Karts began to spin out of control, striking each other. This travel to another land was already filled with monsters.

Mario drove around to avoid being struck by the falling Bob-Ombs. One by one, a series of 7 Bob-Ombs dove toward the ground, exploding and denting the ground in the process. Mario and Luigi had both managed to successfully miss them all.

Another trick was employed. Bob-Ombs using blue-and-white parachutes began to leap out of the trees in an attempt to land on the passing go-karts. One particular Bob-Omb, named Bob just like the rest of them, opened up his chute and focused on his aim, wanting to land in just the right spot. Slowly, he descended through the air, and he tilted his body right to ride the winds more in that direction, piloting his wingless body to land gently on the back of Mario's red go-kart. His blue-and-white parachute landed on the kart a few seconds later. In seconds, he was shaking violenly, his black body flashing yellow once per second, and after four seconds, twice as fast.

Mario punched the Bob-Omb just when there was a spot open, in the fast-moving traffic of go-karts, for the monster to land on empty road without hurting anyone.

"Anything else coming at us?" Mario yelled.

Indeed, a Lakitu, an orange animal inside a white cloud, was floating on by. "No! No, no, no, not the Lakitus!" Mario yelled. But, indeed, it was happening: go-karts with no ceiling were being bombarded by red Spiny shells, which were covered in spines and thorns, thrown by the Lakitu in the cloud.

Everyone in the immediate area simply drove away from where the Spinies were being thrown, as their red shells landed on the ground, perfectly on their feet, to walk under their spiny shells' protective coating. They were walking slowly across the road now, and many go-karts attempted to avoid hitting them.

"Peach. I need some veggies," Mario said.

Peach quickly got to work handing him the combat veggies.

"Eat your veggies, Lakitu!" Mario yelled, throwing the naturally weaponized plant life at the monster in the cloud. Striking the side of his head, the veggie knocked Lakitu out of the white cloud he had been resting in. Lakitu, a species similar in design to the Koopa, wriggled around on its back, thrashing its four limbs for a moment. Sighing, it gave up.

"Maaa-a-a-rio! There's more Lakitus behind him!" Luigi yelled.

Indeed, two more Lakitus were approaching from ahead, one from Mario's left and one from his right. Mario and Luigi both had to aim carefully, trying their best to lock their aim onto their moving targets, but when they threw their veggies, neither one threw them nearly hard enough. Mario and Luigi tried again. For the second time in a row, they missed. They tried again. For the third time, they missed.

Now the two Lakitus did some throwing of their own. They threw one Spiny shell at a time. Two were working on this task at once. They quickly threw shell after shell down onto the ground, to present more obstacles for the plumbers.

Mario waited for perfect timing. He threw a veggie at the Lakitu, at such a precise moment that it would strike the Spiny shell, which was falling down through the air, to bounce back up and strike the Lakitu. All at once, the monster was knocked out of his cloud. Mario quickly looked at the other Lakitu, and threw a veggie at an oncoming Spiny shell to make it bounce back up to hit its master. Soon enough, the third Lakitu monster for the day struck the ground. "Boy, we sure do win a lot!" Luigi said.

The drive was silent for the next 10 seconds, and all they had to worry about now was the normal traffic of go-karts driven by mushroom-people. However, a few surprises were still left. A Giant Goomba, from Giant Land, leaped down from the thick branches of a tree, and landed on the ground. It snapped its enormous jaws at Mario and Luigi threateningly. Not a single veggie was left in either of their possession. Too many had been wasted on those two Lakitus earlier.

Mario drove right into the Giant Goomba, being able to think of no other way to deal with the monster. But 3 more Giant Goombas leaped down to the ground from tree branches, and so Mario and Luigi found themselves deliberately aiming both go-karts at them, to avoid being the ones attacked. Knocking into all 3 monsters, the plumbers had won again.

At last, the drive down the Royal Raceway became quiet and normal again. It was incredible to think of how many monsters they had encountered here, but all the monsters in this area were down by now, for certain. Within minutes, the two drivers reached an exit in the raceway, leaving the paved roads to get to the normal dirt roads of the town.

Peach's castle was far away now. The signs by the dirt road now read: "SUNSET VILLAGE - 1 Mile Ahead".

After only one more mile of driving, they arrived at Sunset Village. The "WELCOME" sign was written in red letters, against orange wood: "WELCOME TO SUNSET VILLAGE".

"Let's check out what this village has to offer," Mario said.

The village was complete with dozens of buildings, varying in size between one, two, and three stories tall. The entire town was uniform in the wall textures, and the buildings only came in three colors, gray, biege, and red. The go-karts drove around the main roads of the town, and the drivers admired the sights of the place.

Driving around the roads and intersections, they stopped at a building labeled SHOP. Turning off the engines, Mario and Luigi unbuckled their seatbelts and climbed out of their vehicles. Luigi opened the SHOP door for Daisy, Peach, and Mario.

"Hello!" a mushroom-person man said, from behind a counter made of many wooden boxes. "Are you here to buy or sell?"

"Buy," Mario said.

"All right! Well, let me come show you what we've got. A VERY special deal: Super Mushroom, this is, of course, the kind that makes you giant, for only 60 coins each. 60 coins! BUT! But! Special deal! Special deal. 50 coins. Special deal. Now, over here we have -"

"60, 50 coins?" Mario asked himself. "Sheesh. Please don't tell me the economy is bad here, too?"

"Hey, now, this is actually a pretty small price for something of so much value. 100 coins gets you two power-ups. Sounds fair enough to me."

Peach and Daisy murmured between each other for a moment. "That does sound kind of fair," Daisy said.

Luigi looked around. "Hmm. Let's get four Fire-Flowers, for starters. We'll need that." Turning to the man behind the counter, he said: "I'll take four Fire-Flowers."

"Coming right up! 198 coins. 13 coins tax. Your total comes to 211 coins. Can I interest you in a Mushroom Card? . . . It's kind of like a credit card, except, uhhh, you know. It's shaped like a mushroom."

"Does it come out of checking?"

"No, it counts as credit."

"Hmm. I don't know. I don't think so."

"Are you sure? It could save you 8% off your -"

"I - I don't know," Luigi said. "I don't think so. Maybe next time."

"All right. Well. I'll get fired if I don't ask. So." The man behind the counter excitedly ran to show off the rest of the items he was selling. "Remember, 100 coins gets you two items."

_Koo-wumm!_ came the sound of Luigi showing off his large green Frog Coin. "Holy mackerel!" the man screamed. "S-sorry. Didn't mean to curse. But you understand that these things are worth 100 Mushroom Kingdom coins, right now, due to the -"

"Ex-exchange rate. Yeah. I know."

". . . due to the _exchange rate _of two different forms of currency. Yes. These things are VERY handy! All right!"

So Luigi presented a second Frog Coin, and took a moment to get 11 gold coins onto the counter. "Here," he said. The man handed him four Fire-Flowers, to be used later.

"I'll have four Metal Caps, and four Starmen. Hey - do you have any artifacts that enable flight?"

"No, sorry, I don't have any of that stuff here at my shop. Nothing for flight."

"Well . . . who does, in this town?"

"This town? Nobody, I'm afraid. This town has outlawed all items that enable flight. No - if you want that, you would have to look three towns west, I'm afraid. I can, however, help you with those Metal Caps and the Starmen. Can I interest you in a -"

"No thanks."

Soon enough, the four adventurers were each in possession of a single Fire-Flower, Metal Cap, and Starman, each artifact possessing a pretty insane amount of power. The four felt unstoppable, except for Daisy, who continued to feel only anxiety from these travels. Over the years, she had heard the stories of Mario and Luigi going on their great adventures, saving kingdoms, fighting villains, encountering armies of monsters. They had been stories, so far, real life stories exchanged by other people. Her boyfriend was a hero of the worlds, yes. But she had never really seen all the action like this for herself before.

"So this is what an adventure looks like, eh?" Daisy asked as she walked with the other three through Sunset Village.

"Oh, this? This is nothing," Luigi said. "This is just preparation. We want to have a few things to help us when we start the _real _adventure. Daisy . . . look. You'll get through this just fine. You want to be one of us heroes, right? Out in action? Stopping the bad guy? So that's what you'll be."

"That doesn't mean I can necessarily do the same things myself," she said. "Unlike you guys, who have plenty of history fighting monsters and conquerors, I really don't. I want to go back home."

"Daisy. You can't mean that."

"Go back home? It wasn't your father that was abducted," Peach said angrily to Daisy. "I'm not going back home!"

"Maybe so," Daisy said. "I've been abducted by Tatanga in the past."

"All right . . . I've got an idea," Luigi said. "Just apprentice with us for a while."

"Apprentice?"

"Yeah! You know . . . watch us heroes in action. You'll see. A couple hours of watching us in action, and you'll be ready to fight the bad guys."

"Are we gonna have to wipe your tears away for you, too?" Peach yelled.

Mario and Luigi were shocked. They had never expected her to say that. "You're being a wuss!" Peach added. "Come on, Daisy. You wanted to come out here with us, and see what the adventure looks like. This is what it looks like."

Daisy thought about it. "This is what it looks like!" she said. She nodded her head.

Sunset Village had more going on than just that SHOP building. There was an INN building, in case of sleepiness. HOSPITAL. DOCTOR. SHERIFF. JAIL. BARBER. PIRHANA JOE'S PIZZA. BIG BLOOPER'S PIZZA.

"Heh heh!" Mario laughed while shoving Luigi. "Looks like our decision to teach pizza to the Mushroom World has paid off in spades! Look - there's two competitor pizza places! 31 years ago, these guys had no idea pizza existed!"

"Just call us Marco Polo!" Luigi said. "Makes me wonder what else we should bring to this world from Earth. Some things, I think, we should leave behind."

The sign for PIRHANA JOE'S PIZZA depicted a Pirhana Plant, red and green in color, standing while wearing a white apron and tall chef's hat, holding a glass container of parmesan cheese in one hand. Similarly, the sign for BIG BLOOPER'S PIZZA depicted a pink octopus throwing pizzas at terrified people.

"REMEMBER: You Need Bottled Water," read the words in a 30-foot sign that depicted an enormous pink Blooper octopus holding up a nameless bottle of water. Beneath that: "You may think you are fine without it, and for a short time you may actually be fine, but you need bottled water if you are to remain at all healthy, and particularly if you are planning on a long travel."

"!" Luigi said. "He's right! We will need bottled water if we are to survive!" So the four adventurers ran through the town, into the BOTTLED WATER store.

Inside the building, the walls were all dark blue, and the floors and ceilings were light blue. The smell of bleach and perfume brought back sensations of Kindergarten in the two plumbers. Walking through the store, they found a lifetime supply of bottled water lining every shelf.

"Look at this one!" Luigi said, pointing to the two-ounce bottles of water. "Who is this for? A baby?"

Walking on further, Mario pointed to the 10-gallon jugs of water, and asked "Who drinks this? Giant Land?"

Two Goombas from Giant Land approached him from one aisle over, giving him an angry glare. After a moment, the wife, of those two, went back to pushing the shopping cart loaded with a 10-gallon jug of water. "Well . . . still, look at this! Smart Water?" Mario asked. "What's next? Dumb Water?"

Walking on, they found Dumb Water. "Oh. Well!" Mario said.

"Hey, check this out, Mario! Look at my balance!" Luigi jumped onto one 5-gallon jug of water, gripping its top with both hands, and executing a handstand that kept both of his feet high up in the air. Slowly spinning his body around, he said, "Check this out, I can keep up a - whoaaaa!" And Luigi crashed into all the jugs of water in the area.

"And you and your deadbeat brother can STAY out!" the mushroom-person manager screamed, pushing the two plumbers out the front door of the BOTTLED WATER building.

Mario and Luigi sighed, their backs to the walls of the BARBERSHOP building. "Now what are we going to do?" Luigi asked, extremely depressed.

"Neither one of us can get the bottled water now," Mario added. "Hey. What happened to our girlfriends?"

Taking another glance in the store, the manager was already deep in conversation with not only one, but two, princesses! Mario and Luigi ran inside, afraid. "Peach! Daisy!" they yelled. "We'll save you!"

"Oh, is that the case?" the manager asked Daisy. "For that many years, huh?"

"Yes, and today was the King being captured. It's never been the King before. Anyway. What we need is 4 gallons of water total. We have cash."

"I see. Can I interest you in a Bottled Water Store Credit Card?"

"NO!" Daisy screamed, and she slapped the man.

"All right! Hey! Stop it! I get fired if I don't ask! Okay? . . . Anyway. So. Four gallons? Coming right up."

"Oh . . . wait . . . I guess there's a tax on that."

"No, there's no tax on water," the man said.

"Really?" Daisy asked.

"Really?" Peach asked.

"No, they don't tax certain things that are food or water. Anyway - your total is 400 coins. But minus 4 coins, now it is 396 coins."

"Minus 4 coins?"

"Yeah. You know. Bottled water costs 99 coins. Sounds a lot cheaper than 100 coins. So, two bottles of water, 99 times 2, 198. You buy three items that cost a Frog Coin each, and it's 297 coins . . . 300 minus 3, 400 minus 4, 500 minus 5. Yep. Retail is a wonderful world."

"You just said cents," Peach said.

"No I didn't. I said coins. Really."

"Oh. Well, anyway. Thank you!"

"Have a good one!" the mushroom-person manager said as the two princesses left the building. He continued to check them out as they were leaving.

"WE got the four gallons of water," Daisy yelled at the two plumbers.

Mario and Luigi grumbled. "Oh well," Luigi said. "At least this should help them get over their travel anxiety."

"So what's the next land we travel to?" Peach asked. "Our goal is to get to Tatanga's spaceship."

"Yes," Mario said. "And unfortunately, no villages in this entire land seem to sell anything capable of flight. We could attempt to ask around for more opinions than just his. But, we run the risk of wasting some time. Basically, we want to get to Tatanga's ship. That's our goal. But to reach his ship, we need to get our hands on an artifact that enables flight. They can be bought three towns west of here."

"Three towns west of here? That doesn't sound so bad," Luigi said. "We could make it in a day or two."

"Let's just see," Mario said.

The four travelers walked through the village, now in possession of a Fire-Flower, Starman, Metal Cap, and a gallon of water each.

"What's three towns west of here?" Luigi asked.

Mario consulted a map. He looked for Sunset Village. Above Sunset Village - to its north - laid the freezing cold ice-lands of Frappe Snowland. Below Sunset Village - to its south - was the Koopahari Desert. To the right of Sunset Village, moving east, was Ocean Land, the land of beaches and the ocean. To the left of Sunset Village was Sunrise Village, followed by the Rice Fields, followed by Windtown. This was the town where they could buy an artifact to enable flight.

"We are here," Mario said, pointing to Sunset Village on the map. "Three towns west is Sunrise Village, the Rice Fields, and finally, Windtown. Once there, we'll buy an artifact for flight. We'll use it to reach Tatanga's ship. The four of us will fight Tatanga's servants, and fight the alien himself, and rescue the King. Remember. Although each of us possesses a Fire-Flower, a Metal Cap, and even a Starman, they must be used very, very conservatively."

"Let's go check out Sunrise Village!" Daisy said.

Standing in the hilly parts of Sunset Village, the adventurers were able to look all around themselves and see what lands laid out in the far distance. The freezing ice lands of Frappe Snowland. The desert terrain of the Koopahari Desert. Those were clearly the wrong ways to travel. Sunrise Village appeared to almost always be in its sunrise stage of the day. It was clear to see which path led to Sunrise Village, and therefore, which path was west.

"Tip: attach a compass to your go-kart," Luigi said, pointing toward his green go-kart.

Mario and Peach raced to the red go-kart, to climb inside, while Luigi and Daisy climbed inside the green kart. "My compass says that way is west!" Luigi said, tearing off down the road and crashing right into a tree. "Aahhhh-wah! Stupid tree." Luigi applied the brakes, pulled the shifter to Reverse, and gave it gas, reversing the go-kart and hitting Mario.

"Nooo!" Mario screamed. He raced ahead. "Okay. No more stupid go-kart accidents?"

"Shut up," Luigi said angrily. He tore off down the road, again, traveling west.

The tan-colored road went on for several minutes, in the go-karts. Mario and his company of travelers were glad that they were not stuck walking. Already, the heat of the Sun had exhausted them and made them sweat more than they would have expected. The one gallon of water was slowly being reduced.

"WELCOME TO SUNRISE VILLAGE," read the wooden sign that welcomed the four, as they continued to drive on past.

"The last village we visited had a lot of buildings," Luigi said. "I wonder what this new town will bring?"

The two go-karts gradually began to slow down their speed, to observe some of the enormous mushrooms that were growing from the ground. Luigi touched one with his hand, and watched as the gigantic orange mushroom, almost half as tall as himself, bobbed back and forth in the wind. He laughed.

One orange mushroom in the middle of the road popped up and revealed itself to be a Goomba. Angrily, the Goomba wobbled on forward with its small two legs. The Goomba snapped its jaws and threatened to bite Mario. He jumped up into the air, soaring up high and landing on the Goomba.

"Didn't find that in Sunset Village," Luigi noted.

Three Goombas were emerging from a large hollow log laying on the ground. "Didn't find that, either!" Mario said. Wasting no time, the two jumped into action, landing on two Goombas, and Mario executed a second jump to squash the third Goomba.

"How violent," Luigi said.

_Bop! _Luigi was knocked back by a green shell, which slid across the ground at fast speeds. "Arf!" he yelled as he hit the ground. It was not enough force to kill him. But another two blows to the body equal to that, and he'd be a goner, and he knew it.

"Weege! Noo!" Mario yelled, and he looked to his left just in time to notice an oncoming red Koopa shell. Mario jumped up into the air in time to miss the red shell from striking him. The thing moved so fast that it left a small red trail of energy behind itself. Mario breathed a sigh of relief, safe from the danger at last.

The shell struck a brown block, and reversed its course back toward Mario. These shells slid so fast. Mario jumped just in time to land on the red shell, and the energies and velocities of both objects hitting each other neutralized both. Mario landed on the ground on his two feet, and the red shell was no longer in motion. He grabbed the red shell, carried it in his hand, walked it over to the green shell, and both flipped away from each other and ceased to exist.

Leaving the two go-karts behind - for the moment - Mario and Luigi headed the walk through the land, down the natural road of Sunrise Village. From the trees, on both sides of the road, two Goombas and three Koopas emerged, stepping onto the road to walk in the direction of the plumbers.

The timing had to be just right. Mario jumped on top of one Goomba's head, then grabbed the monster with both hands, picked it up, and threw it onto the ground. He had intended to hit the other of the two Goombas, but instead the one he threw landed on the natural ground, and went back to jumping up and down.

Both Goombas snapped their jaws at the two plumbers. "Look at this," Luigi said to Daisy. "Watch, and apprentice."

Mario punched one Goomba, and Luigi kicked the other. Both monsters flew back through the air, in two different directions, 90 degrees apart from each other. Both were finished. But the three Koopas were just starting to get energized. All three Koopas, red, green, and blue, ran after the two plumbers, and Daisy, though she knew to be prepared, still involuntarily gasped, covering up her face with both forearms.

Luigi jumped through the air, landing on the blue Koopa. The monster was immediately removed from his shell, forced to fly forward, leaving the shell as a lifeless object, like a left-over clam shell in the ocean: a perfect weapon. Luigi picked the shell up, and decided to run around in circles for a moment, to be absolutely sure that his aim was good. Running around in circles was always a critical step to getting this done right. Aiming it precisely, he dropped the Koopa shell and, like a soccer ball, kicked the object, so that it would knock into the red and green Koopas, and continue to travel.

_Thwack!-Thwack! _came the double-sound of Koopas being struck, the monsters removed from their shelves, as the blue shell continued to soar ahead.

The four travelers stayed still for a moment, until they saw that the road was now clear of monsters. They traveled backward, for a small time, to get back to the two go-karts. The vehicles drove on, and in less than one minute, monsters began to pop out from the sides of the road and into the middle of the path again, and so the four heroes jumped out to fight them on-foot.

"I've - I've never done this before!" Daisy yelled. "YOU guys have gone out PLENTY of times!"

"Just watch," Mario said. "I swear - it won't be that scary after long enough."

Three Round Goombas were running at Mario, a completely different shape than the normal Goombas he was used to. These were the ones that were native to Dinosaur Land. Mario jumped on one, picked it up, and threw it into the second of the three Goombas, who in turn knocked into the third.

The ElectriKoopa, whose shell was both purple and blue, threw its shell outward, to strike and electrifiy both plumbers at once, before it returned to the monster's smaller yellow body. Mario remembered these things, too. They were from Isle Delfino, the island shaped like a dolphin. So many different times he had saved people . . . it was hard to keep it all together . . .

Luigi ran at the ElectriKoopa, cursing and swearing the whole time. "$& &! &$ *! $& (&! You hear me? You little *#(&#&(#*!"

"Luigi! Luigi! Calm down!" Mario yelled. "Stop! Don't touch him. That's just what he wants!"

The ElectriKoopa was laughing now. Laughing.

"I'll teach you to laugh!" Luigi yelled, punching him. But on came another shock.

Mario looked around. Weren't any sticks on the ground big enough? He found one small piece of a log. "Hey-a Koopa!" he yelled loudly. He threw the object, but nothing happened. The log did no damage to the monster.

Angrily, the ElectriKoopa sent its shell outward, to strike Mario. Just what the plumber wanted. He leaped up into the air, landing on the beast, flattening it. "Whew! Huh! Finally!" Mario said. "I am way, WAY too old to be doing this!"

"Hey, that's fine. You get older, you only get better," Luigi said, shoving Mario by the arm.

"Not better at lasting several hours at this! Oh . . . you're welcome, for saving you."

"I would have got him. Nyahhh-ah."

Mario and Luigi looked around. What else was out there? A Black Koopa approached. "Wait! No! That's no Koopa!" Mario yelled. "DON'T TOUCH THAT SHELL!"

Luigi jumped on the monster's back, his shell, then landed on the ground next to it. He was ready to kick the monster, as he would normally kick a Koopa shell, until he observed that the black shell self-destructed in an explosion with a small blast radius.

"My . . . what?" Luigi asked.

"Sarasaland," Mario said. "They're from Sarasaland. They're called Nokobons."

"Who are you, Goombario?"

"Shut up!"

"I thought it was called Sara-sara-land," Luigi said. "I could have sworn."

"Uhhh, nn . . . no, that's just a translation error between Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom. Anyway. Nokobons are from the same planet as Tatanga. They're one of his minions."

"Then, why do we see them here, alongside all the normal animals of the Mushroom Kingdom?" Luigi asked.

"Tatanga's in charge," Mario reminded him. "Clearly, Tatanga is employing the same kinds of monsters as he did last time, with these Nokobons, yet he seems to want to employ Bowser's choice of minions as well, with the Goombas and Koopas."

"So he's taking over armies now?" Luigi asked.

"In a sense . . . maybe he's abducting these monsters and making them work for him. Well. We need to reach Tatanga, and we need to reach the King. We've only really traveled ONE land west by now. We still need to reach two more lands until flight artifacts are legal."

"Why did they make it illegal to fly, again?"

"A kid broke his arm."

"Oh. That's a shame." Luigi sighed. "Hope the kid's arm is all right."

Two monsters walked in the plumbers' direction that they had never seen before. They were Koopas with orange shells, with red outlines. Fire Koopas, within seconds, became a clear possibility for their nickname. Both monsters belched a small ball of fire through the air, to travel on until it struck something, or until it wafted away into thin air.

"Fire Koopas?" Luigi questioned. "I've never seen these things before!"

"Relax, Luigi. How hard could it be?" Mario asked. He ran forward, but the monsters ran into action as well.

One Fire Koopa jumped on the other, then kicked its orange shell at Mario. Quickly, Mario dashed away as a flaming orange shell flew at him, leaving behind itself a small trail of fire which took several seconds to die down. Mario jumped up into the air as the shell came at him again, returning to its Koopa friend. Soon, Mario saw that this Fire Shell would continue to move his way, repeatedly.

Luigi jumped on the other of the two Fire Koopas, separating it from its shell. Luigi threw one shell into the other, igniting an explosion of fireworks. Both Fire Koopas now seemed down for the count.

"Huh," Mario said. "The last town we visited had, like . . . shops, and inns, and stuff. This land seems to be uncivilized, and full of monsters."

Luigi nodded his head.

"I think I've been apprenticing for long enough," Daisy said. "I think I get the rough idea of how this stuff works. I think I ought to try this action, this combat!"

"Are . . . are you sure you're ready?" Luigi asked.

Three Buzzy Beetles, with shells as hard as diamond, slowly walked in their direction. "Guess I'm about to find out!" Daisy said, and she ran out into action for the first time.

It wasn't that hard. She landed on one of the three Buzzy Beetles. Then, she landed on the ground next to it. She had to take a second to admire that she had really been able to do it. She had landed on the beetle! For now, it was out of commission, stuck inside its shell. With enough time, it would bring itself back to its feet. Now what?

Now she ran forth and kicked the Buzzy Beetle into the other two, knocking them both away. "HA HAAA!" Daisy screamed, never having expected the exihilarating rush of action and adventure. "Did you see that? I just knocked away three monsters, by myself!"

"I'm proud of you!" Luigi said happily, and he gave her a kiss.

Daisy got herself ready to fight more monsters, as Peach, Mario, and Luigi returned to their go-karts to get back to driving. Now that they had fought all the monsters in the area, and likely scared off whatever ones remained, it was time to drive to the next land over, while the compass' pole pointed toward 3:15, making their current travel direction West.

The next land over would be the Rice Fields.

…

Okay, so. Although I loved Super Mario Bros. 3, with its adventure through the Mushroom Kingdom, desert, ocean, Giant Land, sky, Ice Land, Pipe Maze, and the Valley of Bowser, I also think it's time for an all-new Mario adventure filled with a sequence of lands you've not yet heard of. Super Mario 64 was cool, and although it repeated the settings of desert, ocean, a size-world, the sky, and the ice-lands, it was all done in 3-D, way different-looking than how it had been shown before. Several Mario games since, like New Super Mario Bros. and its sequels, have simply repeated that basic journey, the desert, the ocean land, the ice land, but I say, it's time for a sequence of lands never yet done. So: the Mushroom Kingdom, the Royal Raceway (taken from Mario Kart 64), Sunset Village (an RPG-like town), Sunrise Village (action level), and next, the Rice Fields, which will be followed by Windtown (like Chicago, the Windy City).

Familiar places from previous games are mentioned on the map, to create a complete mental portrait of the world - but they are not visited by the characters. Koopahari Desert, Ocean Land, and Giant Land are from Super Mario Bros. 3, and the Frappe Snowland is from Mario Kart 64.

Their adventure to travel three towns west is like the east-to-west travel from Japan to America. This is technically the journey that Mario, as a video-game and as a character, makes.

In terms of the monsters, indeed:

- Super Mario Bros. 3 had the Giant Goombas, from Giant Land

- Super Mario Land had the Nokobons, from Sarasaland

- Super Mario World had the Round Goombas, in Dinosaur Land (why not co-exist?)

- Super Mario Sunshine had the ElectriKoopas, in Isle Delfino

- and to my knowledge the Fire Koopas are all new, by me.

The 3rd of 3 Mario cartoon shows - Super Mario World - had involved Mario teaching inventions from Earth to a species of cavemen that were never seen in the game, in Dinosaur Land. For instance, in one episode, the car, in another, the telephone, often with the disastrous result that the cavemen are just not ready for our modern-day inventions. I have applied this to the mushroom-people of the Mushroom Kingdom.


	3. Chapter 3

Super Mario: the Strike of Tatanga

Chapter 3

It was incredible to think of how far they had gotten in their adventure already. The four adventurers had started their travel in Peach's castle, and traveled through the Royal Raceway, Sunset Village, Sunrise Village, and now, the Rice Fields. Two more lands to move through, until they could achieve flight . . . then, before the end of the day, the first day of the adventure, they would be at Tatanga's spaceship. It was almost - almost - too easy. One land shorter, and it would be too easy.

The Rice Fields had a tan, natural dirt road, the kind that brought on clouds of smoke-like dirt debris as the go-karts drove on over them. Yet on both sides of the natural dirt road laid the endless miles of rice, only 12 inches of which was covered in dirt. One individual strand of rice, from these fields, was large enough to fit in a person's hand. Here, it went on for as far as the human eye could see.

"So . . . this place is real?" Daisy asked. "My word! I've heard of it. I've seen this place on the map, I just . . . never dreamed . . ."

"Never dreamed there really would be the Rice Fields?" Mario asked. "Well, there is."

Going back to their driving, Mario and Luigi drove for countless minutes down the dirt road, following curves, bends, turns, and all the while continuing to see the snow-like sight of the Rice Fields. At last, after having driven for 3 minutes, they found a sign planted in the road that read "RICE TOWN - 1 Mile Ahead".

In their one last mile of driving, Mario and Luigi both noticed that their gasoline tanks were running low. They had, after all, last filled up on gasoline at the same time, and seen to it that the tanks were filled to the top. Since then, all their driving had been back to the castle, little use yesterday, and then today's adventure; generally, two identical journeys since the last gas fill-up. Both were just now seeing the yellow gas light come on. This was one area of the adventure the two heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom had completely forgotten to take into account.

They would deal with it. Somehow.

They were driving through the part of the Rice Fields designated 3-1 on the map. Here, in Rice Town, the roads were yellow, and the rice that covered the ground instead of grass was smaller. Most of the rice in this town was brown rice, fried from the heat. There were shops, inns, and even a Watter Bottle store, with the same logo as the other place. It all looked about identical to the last town they had seen, except for the rice in the ground.

"Wow," Luigi said to Mario. "Look at the effects of globalization. They have the same Water Bottle store here as in Sunset Village!"

"And that's not all," Mario said, pointing his finger toward the pizzerias. "They have Pirhana Joe's Pizza, AND Big Blooper's Pizza, here!"

"Huh. You've seen one town, you've seen 'em all. Then, what's the point of traveling?"

Mario shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but I'm not complaining about there being plenty of pizza around! . . . It's kind of nice! You know?"

The group walked around for a minute, single file, with Mario leading the walk through a shopping plaza, passing by glass display windows of many kinds of stores. A Goomba wore a pink Hawaiian necklace, modeling like a mannequin. It snapped its jaws at the sight of the passing plumbers, but went back to silence after they were gone.

POW STORE, was the name of one store. They sold nothing but POW blocks, in all sizes and colors.

All four people stepped inside the SHOP building for one minute.

"We're out of coins," Luigi remembered.

"So, find some on the ground somewhere," Daisy said.

Luigi used to find "lucky pennies" on the ground, back in Earth. The Mushroom Kingdom used to have plenty of coins laying around, each with some story of how they had fallen there. "I'm afraid it's not so simple," Luigi said. "There are no more coins left on the ground, due to the bad economy."

"Okay, well, either buy something or get on outta my store!" the jerk manager screamed.

The four heroes walked out of the store, sighing with defeat. Walking outside, they found that monsters had overtaken the village! Mice, some kind of enormous version of the animals Mario and Luigi remembered from Earth, were crawling across the ground, gray in color, quickly gnashing their jaws together. Dozens of these enormous mice were running around Rice Town, running rampant!

Mario ran back inside. "There's something going on outside you need to see!" he yelled.

"Shut up! Don't wanna hear it!" the manager yelled back. "You all think you're entitled!"

Mario shrugged his shoulders. Running back outside, he looked at the mice, whom he'd never seen before. He could not think of what to call them. "Hey, mice!" he yelled. "Take this!"

Six mice were looking at him, slowly turning his way. Mario jumped up into the air, landing on one mouse, as fast as it moved, and proceeding to jump onto more mice, rendering them immobile with each landing. Before long, Luigi helped him bring down all six mice.

Beyond those first six, there were still dozens of other mice in the area. "All right, Daisy," Luigi said. "I trust you to be capable. We don't have time to apprentice or watch anymore. I'm gonna need you to be in action with us. All right?"

"Yes," Daisy said. "I'm ready for this!"

Mario and Luigi raced into action to deal with the mice, while Peach, running 90 degrees away from them, leaped into the air and glided ahead, and Daisy, running 90 degrees away from Peach, sprung into action by kicking the mice with lethal low-kicks. At very close range, she was able to attack the 3 mice that surrounded her, jumping and landing on the third and final.

"Yes! Yes! I did it!" she screamed, but she was alone in her celebration of her victory.

More mice were approaching, a few of them busy with eating the rice from the ground, the rest advancing toward Mario and his friends. Now, he noticed, green slime was coming from their mouths. These animals were nothing he had seen before, yet there was still something familiar about them.

"Take this!" Mario yelled, grabbing one by the tail from behind. Slowly, he swung the mouse around by the tail, clockwise, and after a while let it go, leaving it soaring through the air to knock into another mouse.

Only 4 mice seemed to remain in the area. Peach and Daisy got ready in their crane and mantis-style fighting poses. Mario and Luigi each made a series of jumps toward their lone targets, and Peach and Daisy slapped and low-kicked the monsters until all four were down.

"We did it! We did it!" Daisy exclaimed.

"Exactly," Luigi said, giving Daisy another kiss. "WE did it."

"The four of us saved Rice Town," Mario said. "We all deserve a little bit of stuff for free!"

"What's all this banging?" the jerk manager screamed. Now he began to look all around himself, now that he was outside again, and see what the commotion was all about. "What the? RATS? Now we've got an infestation problem?"

"Not anymore," Daisy yelled. "Thanks to US."

The manager looked at Daisy. He looked at one of the many fallen mice. Back to Mario. Back to the fallen mice. Back to Daisy. Back to Mario.

"You guys have saved my shop!" he yelled enthusiastically. "Nobody would go out and shop with this storm of monsters going on! Wow! I owe you guys so much! Here. You each may have ONE thing for free."

Inside, Mario and his three friends looked all around at what the store had to offer.

"Shyguy suit," the shopkeeper said. "You may each have one of these. I can't seem to sell any of these blasted things anyway. With one of these on, people will think you're a Shyguy. Perfect for the little one's birthday parties."

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy each received a Shyguy Suit. Excellent!

"Snifit Suit. Now, this is no toy. This baby fires beads at pretty stinging speeds and forces. They are lethal. They never seemed that useful before today. Funny how this storm of monsters comes along and changes things."

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy each received a Snifit Suit. Perfect!

"And you come back any time I have another infestation problem!" the manager said graciously. So he was not such a jerk after all.

It took a while for the four to find the go-karts, but then they remembered how low on fuel they had been. Gas stations were not as plentiful in the Mushroom Kingdom as they were on Earth. It was still quite a puzzling question, of what could be done with them.

"I know!" Luigi said. "We could sell the go-karts for gas money! Oh, wait, never mind."

Quite a problem. Ditching the karts where they were, for the moment - since a go-kart out of gasoline, stolen, would not be going anywhere, anyway - they continued their travel through the Rice Fields by walking.

3-2 was the section of the land that they were traveling through now, according to the map. Endless fields of rice again surrounded them on both sides of the road. Now the rice was turning yellow across the landscape. After a few minutes of walking past the yellow, sauteed rice, they began to find the first sight of monsters running at them, monsters working in the armies of Tatanga.

Cobrats. Big red snakes, capable of standing straight, vertically, with enough muscle power to crush a human. One venomous bite, and a human victim was done for.

Cobrats. 13 of them, running down the yellow Rice Fields at once.

"What are those . . . things on their heads?" Peach asked.

Mario looked closely. "I . . . can't tell," he said.

4 of the red Cobrats appeared to be wearing helmets, silver metal helmets that covered only half of their heads. One eye was covered in a crystal-blue lens. Wiring led from the helmet to the back of their natural head.

"I have a feeling Tatanga the Space-Lord . . . enhanced these red Cobrats," Mario said.

"What makes you think that?" Luigi asked.

_Pew! _One Cobrat fired a red laser from its mechanical eye-piece, to strike the ground one meter ahead of itself. "That," Mario said.

From the other side of the fields, 7 dark green Cobrats began to run their way. "Is he genetically engineering them now too?" Luigi asked. "They're green."

_Pew! Pew! _Countless laser beams were being fired, in diagonal positions, to hit the ground. There was no way for Mario and Luigi to go up against so many of them. No way at all.

"Time for the Snifit Suit," Mario said. He tossed the object up into the air, and let it fall back down and hit him in the face, sending its magical energy all through his body. In seconds, he was wearing the black and gray Snifit Suit.

"Too cool! Me too! Me too!" Luigi said, and he tossed his own Snifit Suit up into the air, to land on his face.

Snifit Mario. Snifit Luigi. They had never tried these powerful new forms before. The 13 red Cobrats, and 7 green ones, ran at the four heroes. But they were prepared. They fired away with the black beads that the Snifit Suit spit out from its mouthpiece. The black beads struck the Cobrats, and provoked a series of reactions. Those struck in the lower parts, their equivalent of legs, became unbalanced, stunned for a moment, but they regained themselves. Headshots immediately knocked them down. Catching them in their equivalent of the chest, three times, seemed to do the trick.

Mario and Luigi stood back-to-back, firing away in their Snifit forms for the first time ever. Just when they thought they knew it all, and that the world they knew felt stale, this came along. This was a new one, all right.

Peach and Daisy were wearing Snifit Suits and masks as well. They were spitting out beads, with the same level of force as Mario and Luigi. All four of them continued to walk around in circles, slowly, spitting out black beads to strike the Cobrats.

Before long, there were only 4 red Cobrats left, and 3 green ones. But the red Cobrats became pink, and the green ones became dark blue, and they both began to run twice as fast.

"What the? Why is this?" Mario questioned.

"Oh, who knows! Let's just fight them!" Luigi said.

Pink and dark blue were two new colors of Cobrat. They were running frantically now. But, over time, Peach and Daisy were able to assist Mario and Luigi in stunning them with beads, picking them up, and throwing them at each other, rendering them all immobile.

Having four heroes in action was incomparably better than one or two. Daisy would get killed out there, Mario had thought to himself, at first. She had neither the experience nor the strategies needed to survive, let alone thwart, these monsters. But she was proving herself to be a valuable part of the team of fighters. Every last pink and dark blue Cobrat became taken down by others of their own kind.

That was it, for the monsters that occupied 3-2. They walked for a long time to reach 3-3. "Do you think the go-karts will be all right?" Daisy asked.

"Nobody can steal them and drive off anywhere," Luigi remarked.

"What if someone brings gasoline to the go-kart?"

"Well . . . any thief who gets away with our go-karts will be obvious-looking, anywhere they go," Luigi explained. "Anybody would know they stole the go-karts of Mario and Luigi. It would be like someone stealing a dress from Princess Peach and not expecting anyone to notice the unique details that identify it."

"How will we travel long-distance now?" Daisy asked him.

". . . No idea," he said. "Your idea of walking gasoline to the go-kart sounds the most feasible."

"We have no containers . . ."

"We have the bottled water. I refused to throw the bottles out onto the road, earlier. Now we can use those bottles for gasoline. Plus, even if I hadn't, there's always a Bottled Water store for every town, right?"

"Let's just focus on two things," Peach said. "Finding Tatanga, and finding my father."

"And along the way collecting coins," Mario added. He hated it when his girlfriend ended the sentence with an angry, demanding tone, and he thought it sounded less attacking when he injected a little humor into it.

"But mostly because we're being serious and NOT horsing around," Peach said sternly.

"Although we've still got our own senses of humor intact," Mario added.

"Stop doing this!" Peach yelled. Mario stopped.

Walking through 3-3, the rice was still yellow, with occasional brown strands here and there. The mice were back. Now they came in light-blue, as well as gray. Two colors of mice were running at the four heroes.

"It's plumbing time!" Luigi yelled, leaping onto the mice as they crawled quickly across the ground. All four heroes ran their way into the yellow fields of rice, attacking them. But the mice came in such high numbers. They felt more like exterminators than plumbers right now.

Green grass was seen growing out of the ground. "Got it!" Mario yelled. He ran at the grass. He grabbed it, and made sure to grip the plant at the lower part of its stem, so that he could, without ripping the leaves, pull the entire veggie out of the ground.

He pulled out a strawberry!

"A strawberry?" he yelled. This thing was larger in size than the medium-sized white veggies he loved to throw. But it would do. Mario threw the strawberry at one of the mice, and the weapon bounced off and struck a few others on its way to the ground, where it rolled across the rice and took a while to come to a stop.

"Everyone, start throwing strawberries!" Mario yelled, and it was on: Luigi, Peach, and Daisy raced to find more green grass. Quickly gripping the lowest parts of the grass that they could grip above the ground, they each pulled up a large strawberry, to be thrown at the mice.

Yet once they were down, twice as many mice came at them. It would take frantic work, throwing their strawberries with strength and speed, to take down the endless number of mice that ran at them. All four people continued to labor away tirelessly to be rid of the mice.

Within a couple minutes, the population of the mice in these fields had dwindled down from 25 to only 4. The heroes were able to fight these monsters quickly, though they still put up a solid resistance. Daisy jumped on one, and threw it into another. The remaining two mice looked at each other, then turned angry, raising their backs like cats, turning pink in color.

The two pink mice were now twice as fast in their movement. Mario found a small veggie and threw it at one of the mice. It was hurt, but not enough to be defeated. Luigi landed on that mouse, leaving it defeated in battle. Mario spun the last remaining mouse around by the tail, and let it go, but the mouse landed on the ground, and ran back at him.

Mario ran across the ground, and jumped up into the air and onto the mouse. The mouse dashed away, so that he just barely missed, and hit the ground.

Luigi ran across the ground, and jumped up into the air. He, too, landed on the ground, when the mouse tricked him, and moved away.

Daisy ran across the ground, and leaped up into the air. She almost landed on the mouse, but it dashed itself away from her. She tried to kick it, but it still would not be hit.

While Daisy bought some time fighting the monster endlessly with her feet, Peach ran up into the air, and floated through it. Her feet soared to the left, and then to the right, with no ground underneath. She landed roughly on the final mouse.

All the monsters were down now. Teamwork had been the key.

Yet the moment of victory gave way to a moment of terror. The very ground underneath them began to shake. Vibrations of hostility could be felt everywhere in the air. It was apparent that someone was coming. Someone enormous in size. Someone who was angry.

"The leader of the mice!" Luigi yelled.

"Mouser!" Mario yelled back.

Grinning, Mouser adjusted his black sunglasses, which twinkled with white light. "You've got it, baby!" Mouser said. No wonder the mice had appeared somewhat familiar. They were all working for him.

Mouser held up a bomb, with a fuse of rope that was quickly burning. "Here's a little song," Mouser yelled. "I like to call it: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes! Cause it all goes ka-boom when the bomb explodes!" Quickly, he began to throw his supply of red bombs, which exploded once their rope fuses were burned to the end, in the direction of Mario and his 3 friends.

_KA-BOOOOM! _One red bomb went off, sending rice everywhere. Mario and his friends ran away, only to find another blast not far in the distance, as another red bomb fell to the ground just as it exploded. _BA-BOOOOM! _Now there was a loud ringing in their ears as dust and debris was sent everywhere.

"We can't endure this!" Mario yelled, running quickly in a straight line, followed by a series of blasts from more red bombs. "How can we possibly stop Mouser?"

Luigi shrugged his shoulders.

Three red Cobrats emerged from behind Mouser, to give him some additional assistance. Mouser was throwing bombs at Mario and Luigi, one at a time, until six bombs from his supply were exhausted. Then, when he took a second to gather more, leaving him powerless for a brief minute, the Cobrats bounced into action to attack Mario and his friends.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy picked the Cobrats up and threw them at Mouser. Three of them missed. Daisy's Cobrat struck Mouser.

Mario and his friends raced back into action, but they were not able to attack Mouser again before he could get his hands on six more bombs. One by one, he threw them at the four heroes who had stopped all his mice. The name of the game right now was not offense. It was not attack. It was a small hope for survival.

Once all six bombs were depleted, with no fatalities suffered, more Cobrats emerged to guard Mouser while he re-gathered himself. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were successful in throwing the Cobrats at Mouser, striking him repeatedly. After three more rounds of this pattern, Mouser went down.

"I . . . hate you aaaaaaall," he screamed, clutching his chest. "Nooooooo!"

Mouser's body was caught in a large beam of white and blue light. His body was broken apart, into thousands of pieces, and sent skyward. In mere seconds, nothing was left.

The mice were all done for, and Mouser was defeated. Their journey to stop Tatanga was actually making pretty good progress so far. They just had no way of knowing what lied ahead. The only real clues they had were Princess Peach's psychic visions of what lied ahead, what monsters they would find in the next mile. But that was really all they had.

The area of 3-3 had been conquered. They walked on, wondering what they would do without their go-karts.

.

It took a while for the landscape around them to become dark brown rice, a kind of terrain they had not yet encountered. Black beans could be found sporadically across the fields. Within several minutes of walking, they found the sign marking the start of the territory of 3-4.

Here, they walked for a short time and found floating bricks over the ground, with equally sized and shaped Question Blocks in between. "Wonder what we'll find here!" Mario said, and he bopped the first of three Question Blocks that he saw from underneath.

The Question Block spit an item out of its ceiling: a red-and-white mushroom. The item, spit up into the air to soon land on the ground, remained still until Mario grabbed for it. The Question Block thus became inactive, its lights dimmed, the ? mark gone from the exterior design. This block would remain inactive until someone reloaded it with some kind of item.

"Cool! Cool! Me too!" Luigi said, and he bopped the second of the three Question Blocks to find a blue and purple mushroom.

"No! Nooo!" Mario reminded him. "That strand causes _instant death!_"

"Yikes!" Luigi yelled, jumping up into the air as it slid across the ground past him, between his legs and feet.

"Well, what about this one?" Luigi asked. He bopped a Question Block, and out came a Starman. Gasping, he ran to catch the object as it bounced once, twice, and three times across the ground, and he grabbed it with both hands, screaming "GOTCHA! C'mere . . ."

All the energy within the Starman transferred itself to Luigi instead. His entire body became laced with white and yellow sparkles of light and energy, as the Starman shrank in size to nothing. Luigi's body, his very clothes, were flashing all colors of the spectrum, one or two at a time. He was overcome with unstoppable energy, but there wasn't much time to do much of anything with it. Over time, it slowed down to a stop. "Well, that kinda sucked," Luigi said.

What was in store for them in 3-4? Two Hammer Brothers, standing on two tiers of floating bricks, as soon as the Starman had worn off. The two foes quickly threw hammers - clearly, an invention from Earth that had long ago made its way into the Mushroom Kingdom, to be misused by King Koopa and his minions - through the air. Magic ensured that one hammer in their hand was duplicated into half a dozen, every time they threw a hammer up into the air.

Two Hammer Bros. occupied two long stretches of brick, each measuring one block tall, 8 blocks wide and deep, which the Hammer Bros. settled on and guarded by instinct. Mario knew the strategy. He ran underneath, and struck the brick above him, wherever a Hammer Brother was standing on. The force of that attack from underneath would finish him.

The trick worked, but a second Hammer Bro. leaped all the way down to the ground, and stood right in Mario's face, their faces both mere inches apart.

The one last remaining Hammer Bro. blew a whistle. He blew the whistle loudly, to everyone that could hear it. He was calling for help, the two plumbers grimly realized.

The Super Amazing Flying Hammer Bros., who rested on two winged blocks to fly around, showed up, assisted by the Boomerang Bros., who threw boomerangs instead, the Fire Bros., who threw fireballs, the Sledgehammer Bros., who were from Giant Land and threw sledgehammers instead of regular hammers, and some sort of new set of monsters, wearing red and black, that Mario could not identify.

The Laser Bros. leaped up into the air and landed on the ground. They were Hammer Bros. who had ditched the hammer in favor of Tatanga's laser equipment, which was embedded into the very suits the Laser Bros. wore.

Mario and Luigi ran away, and leaped up into the air to climb up onto the lower of two floating tiers of blocks. But the Laser Bros. leaped up and landed on the lower tier as well. A red laser beam was sent out into space: long, endless, reaching perfectly outward in a horizontal line. After a moment or two, the Laser Bro. swept the red laser to the left, then the right, and turned the laser off at last.

In this time, Mario had leaped downward, to the ground, while Luigi had instead leaped higher up to the higher of the two tiers, where he found the second Laser Bro. This new figure shot out a laser beam, which Luigi leaped away from, and for several seconds the red laser traveled on endlessly, before the monster swept it left, and right, before stopping.

"We can deal with the Laser Bros.," Mario said.

"But not with all that," Luigi pointed out.

132 of them were running at Mario and Luigi at once.

"We each have one Starman left in our possession," Luigi yelled. "Let's use them!"

The Starmen were interesting things. They appeared similar to Earth's water-breathing starfish, but it was a kind of creature filled with pure energy, which could be absorbed by the squeeze of two human hands. Mario grabbed one, squeezing it to harness its energy for himself. Luigi grabbed his own Starman. Peach and Daisy, without hesitation, looked for their Starmen. Part of being out there, in action, like they wanted to be, meant not being afraid when they were out here. As long as they had the Starmen by their side, they were invincible.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were glowing with energy as they ran into the crowd of oncoming Hammer Bros., Boomerang Bros., Fire Bros., Sledgehammer Bros., and Laser Bros. Knocking into their enemies like a football player ramming into a man on the enemy team, Mario and Luigi caused the monsters' bodies to be quickly thrown away by mere contact with their gloved hands. The Starmen made them invincible, all right. Nothing but a long fall could kill them, while they held the Starman's power. The offensive power that the Starman gave them was more than an electric jolt to their enemies.

Hammers. Boomerangs. Fireballs. Enormous sledgehammers. Red laser light. The monsters threw all these kinds of weapons at Mario and his three friends, but nothing would work to hurt any of them. Not now, while they were using the Starmen.

The four heroes made sure that every second of their limited duration of Starman time was spent touching and knocking away as many of the monsters as they possibly could. One dozen monsters each meant four dozen, or 48, monsters were knocked down in a short period of time. They ran as fast as they could, running even faster once they noticed the slowdown of the Starman's energy. By the time Mario and Luigi's power had slowed down to nothing, Peach and Daisy still had a good 8 seconds left in their durations, so they ran around to knock out every last remaining monster in the crowd.

How many monsters were laying on the ground in defeat? Hundreds. It was way past the point of too many to count. How many people still stood? Four. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, standing back-to-back in a circular arrangement, had to admire what they had done.

"We beat them up," Luigi said proudly.

There was one last Question Block left to strike. Its light was still bright, and the ? mark remained on its exterior design, so it had to have something inside it. Everyone got ready for the possibility that the only thing inside there was a Poison Mushroom.

A white and green egg came out! This egg, made of natural eggshell, reformed through dark magic and sorcery, was freed from the block, and it broke apart to reveal a Yoshi who had been trapped inside.

"Yoshi!" Mario yelled.

"Yoshi!" Yoshi yelled.

"I can't understand a word he says," Luigi whispered to Daisy, who nodded her head.

"That's why I created this translator device," E. Gadd said.

"Egadd!" Luigi screamed.

"Yes. I'm right here, no need to be so loud. Oh, Luigi! How you've grown!" Professor E. Gadd pinched Luigi's cheek. Luigi was still just a boy, to him. Handing him a metal helmet, E. Gadd said: "Here! This technology has still not gone public. But do check it out!"

_This is the dorkiest-looking helmet ever, _Luigi thought.

"Dorkiest-looking helmet ever?" E. Gadd asked him. "Well, say what you will, Luigi - but this 'dorky-looking helmet' allows me to read your mind! Ahhhh ha ha ha ha haaaaa!"

_What the . . . this . . . guy is . . . a . . . genius!_

"Exactly, my boy." E. Gadd removed the helmet from his own head. "I created this device - and converted it from a computer switchboard to a portable helmet - to translate the languages of Yoshi into English and Japanese. As a side effect, it also reads the minds of us humans, translating thought into spoken word. Here! Check it out! Speak to Yoshi!"

"Uhhh . . . h-hello, Yoshi," Luigi said.

"YOSHI!" came a screaming sound out of the speakers of the metal helmet.

Now Yoshi understood. Happily, he waved his arms about in the air.

"How have you been?" Luigi asked.

"YOSHI!" came the sound from the metal helmet.

"Yoshi," the green dinosaur replied. "Yoshi! Yoshi!"

"I've been all right," came the text-to-speech female voice from the helmet. "Just. You know. Trapped in an eggshell! Exclamation mark."

"Hmm. Well, we've got you out of there now!" Luigi said.

"YOSHI!" came the voice out the helmet's speakers.

"Boy, this is just too much," Luigi said.

"Yoshi!" the helmet continued to say.

"Yoshi!" said the green dinosaur happily.

The helmet translated: "I gladly will offer whatever help I can give you, on whatever task you seem to be in the middle of! Just hop on my saddle. But beware of Boshi. He is a dangerous dino, and will try to confuse you. Wait! I only have one saddle. I need to find my Yoshi friends!"

Within a minute, Yoshi had run about the area and found all three Question Blocks in which white and green eggshells were kept, the Yoshi eggshells that the others of his kind were stuck inside. They were freed from entrapment at last. Yoshi, Yoshi, and Yoshi were red, yellow, and pink in color, with Yoshi being the only one that appeared to be female. Yoshi and Yoshi were an ironic match for Mario and Luigi to ride.

The green Yoshi gave the orders for the other three to run to Mario and his friends. Quickly, they did as told, ready to eat the four heroes. The green Yoshi ran in to stop them, explaining that he did not want his human friends eaten, but escorted safely to wherever it was they were going to.

"Tatanga, the conqueror of space, has abducted the King of the Mushroom Kingdom," Mario explained. "I just need transportation to one land west of here, where we will find our own way to achieve flight. We must reach Tatanga's ship - soon - if we are to save the lands."

The green Yoshi carried Mario, the red Yoshi carried Luigi, the pink one carried Peach, and the yellow one carried Daisy. All four Yoshis were now running quickly down the land of the Rice Fields, west of the area 3-4.

.

Now they were at 3-5! It had only taken about 8 minutes of riding the Yoshis. Luigi hopped off the red Yoshi and began to slide joyfully down a hill of rice. Mario joined in as well. Sliding down the hills of rice, individual strands were knocked around a bit. Purple transport pipes rose up out of the ground, and Pirhana Plants rose up out of them, snapping their jaws, so the plumbers steered around them as they slid downward. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy all slid down the hills of rice, while the four Yoshis stayed up at the top and awaited their return.

They were sliding down into an underground cavern, where the ceiling and floor was becoming rock and dirt instead of rice. At last, they reached a lowest point, which went on for at least a mile. Two Moblins came at Mario and Luigi, walking slowly toward them, ready to strike at close contact.

"I've still got Fire Power," Luigi said, and he finally used the one Fire-Flower in his possession. Squeezing the flower like he had the Starman, Luigi became charged with the Fire-Flower's energy, its fire power.

Luigi spit orange balls of fire from the palms of his hands, which struck the Moblins several times and left them flying backward through the air, striking the wall.

Luigi's attire had changed from black against green to white against green. One result of the fire power he now possessed. "Is it really just us that get put through all this?" he asked.

More Moblins, three blue Goombas, and more ElectriKoopas faced them throughout the underground cavern. Luigi's fire power, spitting countless fireballs from his gloved hands, stopped the Moblins, but in the time he spent on them, the Goombas and ElectriKoopa came closer. The ElectriKoopa threw its shell at Luigi, who ran away and fired a fireball quickly at the creature's exposed orange body. Once the orange creature was knocked back, defeated, the electric shell stopped moving.

The three blue Goombas had stepped up close to Luigi now. He spat fireballs from his palms constantly, until all three of them were defeated. All four friends were safe at last. The rest of the walk through the underground caverns remained peaceful, except for the 3 purple transport pipes, from which Pirhana Plants were emerging. A Venus Fire-Trap plant spit fireballs at the four. Luigi jumped up onto the purple transport pipe which it used for a home, to fire a fireball at very close range.

"Luigi! No!" Mario yelled, but it was too late. The Pirhana Plant had smacked one vine right into Luigi, knocking him back and costing him his fire power. Any attack that was enough to destroy regular Luigi, after all, was enough to revert Fire Luigi back to his regular form.

The four heroes simply walked on past, letting go of the pipe-dwelling plants, until they reached the end of the caverns, and an uphill climb to the surface. Above ground, they found the four Yoshis already there, having walked across the surface while the humans were down below. Mario, Fire Luigi, Peach, and Daisy climbed onto the Yoshis, who took off running.

The sign in the ground read 3-6.

.

A mile ahead, Shyguys, their faces concealed by masks and their hair and bodies concealed by full-body robes, walked around their own watch tower, keeping a tight grip on security. One Shyguy, wearing a robe in red, set down his binoculars and spoke into his radio. "Hostile enemies approaching," he said.

"Got him in my sights," a Shyguy in blue said into his radio. From the top of the watchtower, the Shyguy was looking through a Super Scope 6.

_Chhk! _The radio cackled every time it was used. "Do we waste the plumber and his friends now, while they're on the way here?" one asked.

"No!" the Shyguy in red yelled into his radio. "You wait until they get here. Wait until we can surround them. But you do not attack them until they arrive. Those are your orders. Over."

A Shyguy in pink set down his binoculars, but stayed focused.

One by one, the Shyguys, wearing robes in red, blue, and pink, began to emerge from the many crates, boxes, and metal trailers that surrounded their watchtower. As they ran to find the intruders, all they could find were four more Shyguys, two wearing red, two wearing pink.

"Be on the lookout for the Marios," a Shyguy in blue yelled.

The four newcomers seemed to shake for a second.

"Uhhh - y-y-yes, sir," the tall one said.

The shorter, more plump Shyguy smacked the taller one.

The Shyguy in blue frowned. "Very well," he said. "I want a complete lockdown of the ENTIRE area, and an immediate, thorough sweep. Check every square meter, no, every square CENTIMETER of the terrain for MARIO and his deadbeat brother."

_A-whoooo! _Bright white spotlights slowly circled the area, guided by Shyguys in white, positioned at the top of the watch towers. Bullhorns made loud noises to alert any intruders that they would not get through the area undetected.

The four new Shyguys ran quickly, for they were Mario and his friends wearing Shyguy Suits. There were at least two dozen authentic Shyguys in the area that they could count. Only the ones guarding the watch towers seemed to wear white.

Mario and Luigi tried not to spend too much time looking at the watch towers, scanning the area as though their eyes were binoculars. Shyguys in white outfits would have to be taken down from there, somehow, to eliminate the movement of the spotlights. But they quickly looked away. If they were seen staring at the watch towers, the other Shyguys, the real ones, might suspect their true identities. Peach and Daisy, as well-intentioned as they were, and as experienced in combat as they were, could not possibly have thought that far into it, to scan the watch towers for possible strategies, Luigi thought to himself.

"We'll get the watch towers," Peach said to Mario and Luigi. "Daisy and I will stay there and guard the lights."

It was a mission of stealth. Mario and Luigi walked through the fields, but they did not run, for that, too, would throw off their cover story, that they were four Shyguys. Indeed, although the Snifit Suit had been filled with offensive power, and the Shyguy Suit possessed literally zero attack power, zero offensive ability, it turned out to be useful in this other way. Mario and his friends had become like wolves in sheep's clothing.

A pink Shyguy was seen from the back, standing perfectly still, holding a radio. Mario snuck up behind him, grabbed him, twisted his neck to make him fall asleep, and quickly dragged him behind a long trailer, fast enough to remain undetected by the other Shyguys.

Luigi looked up. The watch towers were nearby. Two Shyguys in white were positioned here. Luigi climbed up the ladder, as fast as he could, feeling far from invisible.

At the top of the ladder, Luigi stopped for a moment to make sure that he was moving slow enough to be silent. "My butt itches," the white Shyguy said, scratching himself. He looked right at Luigi! Panicking, Luigi ducked his head down, out of sight. It took five seconds. But, at last, the white Shyguy looked right back ahead. "That's better."

Luigi poked his head up. Two minutes later, he felt ready to climb up to the top. The white Shyguy was on the other side of an open doorway. Luigi ran to the side, to remain unseen. But that was a poor strategy, for someone else might see him. So he ran inside the open door, grabbed the white Shyguy's head with his own red gloved hands, and twisted his head to the side to make him fall asleep. Several objects were knocked around in Luigi's panicked state.

_Chhk! _"What the mackerel is going on up there?" came a voice over the radio.

_Chhk! _"Nothing, boss!" Luigi said into the radio, lying amazingly well due to panic.

_Chhk! _"You sure about that?"

Luigi quickly grabbed the fallen white Shyguy, picked him up, and held him up in the air. If anybody saw Luigi, they would see the Shyguy.

_Chhk! _"All right . . . well . . . stop all that banging noise!"

_Chhk! _"Y . . . yes, sir, boss!" Luigi said into the radio.

Quickly, he climbed down the ladder. One white Shyguy out of two was incapacitated.

Mario, also wearing a red Shyguy suit, had climbed up the other ladder, to locate the second of the two white Shyguys. Once Mario disabled that Shyguy, leaving him unconscious for now, both watch towers had become unarmed.

Back at the ground level, Mario rejoined with his three friends, and, in their Shyguy Suits, they walked on to find the end of 3-6, with no more Shyguy guards to stop them.

"I like what you've done with your hair," Peach said to one female Shyguy.

"Oh, thank you!" she said back.

Mario growled. "Peach, this is not the time to make social time!" he said grumpily.

"Just trying to, y'know, get into it. Jeez. Lighten up, maybe you'll learn to enjoy yourself."

"Can you two not argue right now?" Luigi asked Mario and Peach.

Finally, the four approached the cement wall, guarded by two Shyguys in red, which marked the end of this zone. The Shyguys nodded their heads, allowing all four people inside.

Inside, they found a jazz club full of Shyguys and Snifits. Due to the interior lighting scheme, everything in here appeared black and blue. A pink Shyguy was up on stage, singing and dancing, bathed in the light of blue spotlights. Snifits were sitting in brown chairs, whistling and hooting and hollering.

"Guys!" Mario said. "This is our chance to stop all the Shyguys, all at once!"

"Why?" Luigi asked.

"We can interrogate them about Tatanga."

"Hey! Hey!" a Shyguy bouncer, wearing all black, said to Mario and Luigi. "You two are the ones that disarmed the watch tower guards outside! STICK EM UP!"

The Shyguy in black ripped off Mario's Shyguy Suit, as well as Luigi's.

"GET EM!" Luigi screamed, and the fear was replaced by action instead. On stage, the singer gasped. On the floor, all the Snifits sitting in chairs spun around to face Mario and Luigi. Black beads were firing wildly through the air.

Mario and Luigi were no strangers to jumping. They landed on Shyguys, picked them up, and threw them into other Shyguys. Luigi used a Shyguy as a living shield to defend himself from the Snifits' black beads. The entire crowd became frantic, and Peach and Daisy, still wearing their robes, finally pulled them off and jumped into action.

Daisy may not have been the jumper that Mario or Luigi were, but her kicks sure packed a punch. Stunning a Shyguy for a moment, she ran at it, grabbed it, picked it up, and ran around in circles for a moment to scan the area, finally throwing it at a Snifit that was attacking Luigi.

Red lights flashed on over the jazz club, for just a second at a time, before it became black and blue again. The jazz club sure had an advanced electronic lighting system, all right. The singer on stage leaped into the crowd, landing on Peach's back, but she spun around and knocked the Shyguy away, to land on a table.

Mario thwacked two Shyguys' heads into each other. Luigi kicked one into another. Peach walked around slapping them, and Daisy executed the Homing Jump-Kick on the Snifits. After one minute of intense action, they had knocked down all the Shyguys and Snifits in the club.

"That was tiring," Mario said. "I say we retire for the night."

As Mario and his friends were starting to exit the jazz club, a blue Yoshi, Boshi, entered, wearing sunglasses over his dinosaur eyes.

"Why you cramping my style?" he yelled at Mario.

"Wha-wha-what do you mean?" Mario asked.

"I like jazz music. You just beat up my favorite players! Now you will die! Commence Battle Mode!" Boshi got ready to attack Mario.

A ramming attack was the first thing Boshi tried. Mario jumped to the side. Before long, Luigi was struck by Boshi's second attempt at the ramming attack. It took a relatively short time for Boshi to completely defeat both Mario and Luigi, who passed out on the ground, unconscious.

Peach and Daisy remained alive for battle. "I will not hit a woman," Boshi said.

Mario and Luigi, however, appeared dead.

"Luigi . . .!" Daisy said, with tears in her eyes. "It can't be! It can't!"

The green Yoshi ran to her side, and was followed, in seconds, by the red, pink, and yellow Yoshis, all entering from the same back door as Boshi. "Yoshi!" said the green Yoshi. (You coward! Now we will fight you, with the power of Yoshi!)

All four Yoshis leaped up into the air, flying. Boshi leaped up into the air, flying, as well. Quickly, he side-kicked the yellow Yoshi, sending it flying away. Then he flew at the pink Yoshi, only to find the green Yoshi flying diagonally through the air, kicking him. Soon, all five Yoshis landed on the ground again.

Green Yoshi and blue Boshi both leaped up into the air again, exchanging punches and blows and attacks. In this time, Peach and Daisy began to carry their boyfriends away, to safety. Indeed, Boshi had long since been Yoshi's nemesis in Yoshi's Island, the island home of the dinosaur species. Now, it seemed, they had crossed paths here as well.

Yoshi kicked Boshi in the side, knocking him back. Fighting and combat were not entirely unkown to Yoshi. Nor were they unknown to Boshi; he assumed the hapkido fighting pose, and came at Yoshi again. Yoshi was prepared. Once more, they went back to exchanging punches and blows, until, suddenly, a Bob-Omb exploded and sent them both flying through the air.

For a long while, both Yoshi and Boshi appeared dead. Yoshi slowly showed signs of life, rising from the dirt and rubble, still alive. His mortal enemy, Boshi, did not seem to rise up.

Now they would all travel on.

.

The Rice Fields had been exhausting. What nobody had mentioned, in all these stories of adventures that Daisy had heard so much about, was how exhausting it all really was to endure. Soda, in excess, caused stomach pain, and enough liters of it per day brought on many medical problems. Soda was out of the question during an important adventure like this. Their one gallon of water per person was already depleted, and they needed more. Nobody felt like walking through any more numbered areas for the day.

"How far is Windtown?" Daisy asked Mario, who was reading the map.

"That was the last section," Mario said. "Windtown is right up ahead. We go there. We find a way to fly. Then, this adventure will be over quickly."

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy walked on, to the exit of the Rice Fields. Windtown lied just ahead. The gigantic orange flaming eye could be seen at the top of the hills, in the distance.

.

.

New characters: Laser Bros. (Hammer Bros. wearing Tatanga-made technology). The mice. The Rice Fields are new, yet similar to Super Mario World's food theme. As you can tell, I've cooked all kinds of rice. The strawberries from the ground were also a new one - a slight touch of the Strawberry Fields that the Beatles sang about. New power-ups: the Shyguy Suit and Snifit Suit.

From Mario Bros. comes the concept that the last monster left changes color and rises back to life twice as fast as before. (I apply this concept to the Cobrats.)

From Super Mario Bros. comes: the Super Mushroom, Fire-Flower, Starman, Hammer Bros., and Pirhana Plants.

From Japanese Mario 2, or the Lost Levels: the Poison Mushroom.

From American Mario 2: the grass which leads to veggies, the Shyguys, Snifits, red Cobrats, Mouser, and the basic format of four heroes. (Only on the Super Nintendo, Super Mario All-Stars, do the Shyguys come in blue, and only there is the grass green rather than red.)

From Mario 3: the Boomerang Bros., Fire Bros., and Sledgehammer Bros.

From Super Mario Land: Daisy. Her kicking is a new one, but remember, everybody (except Daisy) was fighting in Super Smash Bros. and SSB: Melee (in which Peach had an alternate color outfit looking just like Daisy).

From Super Mario World: Yoshi, and the Super Amazin' Flying Hammer Bros.

Boshi is from Super Mario RPG, one of those fan favorites that people always wanted to see take on a larger role, as the villain of Yoshi. Also from Super Mario RPG is, of course, all this stuff about villages with shops and inns and buying and selling.

The ElectriKoopa was from 2002's Super Mario Sunshine.

.

In general, the world of this particular Mario story is meant to expand where Super Mario 64 left off. It's like an alternate sequel to Super Mario 64. Starting the adventure at Peach's castle, as it was in that game, and traveling out into the world outside the castle, is the start of a new adventure, comprised of un-heard of lands. This Mario world also includes Mario's house from Paper Mario, and the Royal Raceway from Mario Kart 64, but otherwise this adventure is a bunch of new lands.

Yet many more surprises await Mario and his friends as they look for Tatanga and the King . . .


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The journey was exhausting, but at last, it seemed to be about over. Four members of the Yoshi species ran down the road, beyond the Rice Fields, going west, to find the next town over, carrying Mario and his friends to a place where they would find the ability to fly. What a journey the day had been, so far. The Mushroom Kingdom, the Royal Raceway, Sunset Village, Sunrise Village, the Rice Fields, and - soon - Windtown.

The Sun was just barely starting to set in the sky. Still, Mario and Luigi thought, they were so close to the end, they had to push themselves to make it all the way to Windtown. They could pass out at an inn soon. At least they could rest while riding on the Yoshis.

The dirt road led the travelers to an archway sign reading "WINDTOWN". All four Yoshis ran on into the town, and the exhausting journey seemed, at last, to be worth it. The four friends had started to sweat, but now they found that, indeed, Windtown was just as windy as it had sounded by its windy name. Before long, the four were complaining that they were too cool.

If there was one town in which to fly a kite, Windtown was surely it. Half a dozen mushroom-people kids were running about frantically, flying kites of all kinds. Two kites depicted Link and Princess Zelda. The other kites depicted a red and orange Super Mushroom, Fire-Flower, Starman, and Yoshi.

Indeed, the kites were having much success in the heavy winds of this town. Mario had not seen so much wind since the tropical storm that had passed through the Mushroom Kingdom . . . what was it now? 6 years ago? Windtown appeared to be like this all the time.

The four Yoshis began to run down the dirt roads of Windtown in rows and pairs. 4-1 appeared to be the area of the civlized village. To his left, Mario saw nothing but nature, enormous trees of green and brown rising up from the ground, and a wall of cliffside dirt below higher-up hillsides. To his right, he saw houses built up over the nature.

In these last 5 years, the Mushroom World had indeed seen a lot of expansion in its construction of houses. What used to be miles of empty fields of grass now saw enormous houses, more than enough space for an entire family to live in. The buildings all appeared to be pretty newly-built, with no decay or tearing visible in the paint or the copper pipes. Windtown was a very modernized town, where everyone was driving go-karts around.

"Okay, so remember," Mario said. "This is our to-do list. The four Yoshis are at the inn, and our two go-karts are still back at the Rice Fields, area 3-1."

Walking down the dirt road, past the new neighborhood of houses, Mario came to an INN building, which, though it had been around for years, had been renovated in more recent times to become enormous in size. 1984 was definitely a time when the entire neighborhood was stlll just a natural stretch of grass and trees. Now, one path in the dirt road lead all the way to the inn's doors. The four people walked inside there, leaving the Yoshis outside.

Mario, heading the group, walked to the desk, where he found no clerk visible. Mario waited for a moment, but still, nothing happened. Elevator music playing overhead made him think of the underwater ocean landscape. It was a nice tune, for him to drum his fingernails against the counter to. Finally, Mario walked to a bell at the end of the counter, and pressed it with his finger. "DING!" came a loud noise.

In seconds, a mushroom-person clerk emerged from the next room beyond, and came to the counter. "Yes! How can I help you?" he asked.

So many choices for what to say. I'd like to book a room? Never mind? Call the man ugly? Choices led to the next situation, leading to more choices, leadng to the next situation.

"I'd like to book a room for the night," Mario said.

"I see. How many rooms?"

"Two."

"Smoking or non-smoking?"

"Non-smoking."

"Yoshi-friendly or non-Yoshi?"

"Yoshi-friendly."

"I see. Let me just see what I can do for you here."

Mario nodded his head to Luigi. Then, Mario went outside and summoned the Yoshis inside. The four of them came to Mario, led by the green Yoshi.

"Your total will be 130 coins, per room, so, 260 total."

Griping, Luigi paid the man his coins.

The inn's manager gave Mario his room's keycard. "That's room 2-2," the manager said.

Mario looked at the enormous staircase, which spiraled around in a circular arrangement, like DNA strands in a human body. Yellow blocks were floating in the air, with the appearance of black eyes. These flat blocks were only a few inches thick. Mario and his friends jumped from the floor up to the series of yellow flat blocks, and jumped off at Level 2 of the inn, where they walked around the hallways in search of Room 2-2. Mario used his keycard on the door, which did not open, but seemed to work on the 4th try.

Luigi and Daisy were in Room 2-3. The light went from red to green as it unlocked for them. Finally, they could go to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the four people emerged from the doors to their inn rooms. "Well, that settles the room situation," Mario said. "Time to get us some food and drink!"

Now it was a matter of hopping down a series of flat yellow blocks to reach the ground level. Luigi slid down the spiral staircase's bannister. Peach and Daisy ran down the staircase on-foot instead. Once they were back at the lobby, where the four Yoshis were waiting for them, the dinosaurs rose up from their seats and got ready to rejoin their masters. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy rode the four Yoshis outside the inn, and back to the outdoor village of Windtown.

The next place to go was the BOTTLED WATER store. Indeed, the blue and white logo for this store was the same here as it had been in the other towns. Bottled water was a necessity, even though they had done a lot less exercise while riding the Yoshis. They stopped in here, and bought a little more water for all the people present, and for the Yoshis as well.

Finally, it was time to eat! They took a ride on the Yoshis to examine the entire town, until they could find a pizza place. The only place they could find here was SPIKE'S PIZZA BAG. The sign over the store depicted the green creature called Spike, whose hair and beard was gray, throwing from a brown bag a full pizza pie. They hadn't eaten in so long, they could all literally feel weakness and other symptoms of hunger pains.

Inside, the four waited to be seated. "How many?" the hostess asked. Everyone gave a different answer. "Okay, so . . . how many? . . . Four? . . . Yes, all right. Four."

"Can I have a cookie? For my Yoshi?" Luigi asked.

"Yes! Certainly." The hostess walked away, and returned a moment later with a cookie for the Yoshi. "How many do you have outside?"

"All four of us have a Yoshi outside."

"Oh! Well, then, take four." The hostess gave Luigi three more cookies, which he walked outside.

"All right, Yoshis! Here you go!" Luigi yelled. He tossed a cookie into the air, and the green Yoshi ate it right up with his enormous stretchy tongue. One by one, Luigi fed the other cookies to the other three Yoshis. Then, he went back inside the pizzeria. They were all seated right away, but it would take some time until they were eating food.

They ate pizza for a while. They also tried some chicken alfredo, their favorite blend of meat with pasta, covered in white marinara sauce. It was surprising how many things had become more than globalised, between Earth and the Mushroom World.

After eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom, the sky was dark out, and the four heroes were just too wiped out to do anything more. It was time to pass out in their rooms at the inn, and they knew it. All four heroes, and all four Yoshis, passed out in two rooms at the inn.

It was a great sensation to finally catch some sleep.

.

"Gwaaaah ha ha!" a man said. Behind the man was an enormous wall of blue water-like energy, rippling about. The man was blurry, a shadowy silhouette. As he became less blurred and more clearly visible, it became noticeable that he was wearing a brown coat over green skin. He appeared to be like an enormous version of a frog.

"I am Wart," the man said. "I am the traveler of dreams, the master of nightmares. Remember this: every time you fall asleep, I will be back here. Tick, tick, tock . . ."

A dozen white and brown clocks all appeared around Wart at once, fading in from nowhere. All the clocks were ticking their second hands away at once.

"It's just a matter of time before you have to sleep again," Wart said. "And when you do sleep, you'll find me in your dreams. I am Wart . . . and this nightmare torture will end when you pledge your loyalties to Tatanga, and nobody else."

"You . . . work for Tatanga?" Luigi asked.

Luigi looked to his left, where Mario and Peach were laying down on the floor, and to the right, where Daisy was laying down. Now everybody was sitting up. It appeared that the other three had heard his words.

"Am I dreaming?" Mario asked.

"Is this MY dream?" Peach asked.

"Is this . . .? Wow! I feel so awake!" Daisy remarked.

Wart laughed again. The four turned their attention to Wart. "I am indeed real," Wart said. "I'll show you. Here . . . take these mushrooms with you!"

Wart pulled from his coat two Poison Mushrooms. He laughed loudly as they flew through the air. Mario and Luigi screamed, as the entire world around them fell black, and the entire dream they were seeing died out.

.

They woke up in two different rooms in the inn, each room now seeing a Poison Mushroom on the ground, while the sound of Wart's laughter died down to nothing.

"Waaaah!" Luigi yelled.

"Gaaaah!" Mario yelled, from the other side of the thin wall that separated the two rooms.

Luigi grabbed the Poison Mushroom, and raced a short distance to drop it into the toilet and flush it down the pipes. "Bye-bye, Poison Mushroom," Luigi said.

Mario had thrown the Poison Mushroom at the wall. It bounced off, and hit the floor, continuously sliding back and forth across the floor with zero reaction to friction, until Mario managed to flush it down the toilet.

"How did Wart do that?" Mario yelled.

"How did Wart throw that Poison Mushroom into the real world like that?" Luigi asked.

"I don't know," Daisy said. "But I had that same dream as you. Wart."

It was the morning time now. Sunlight was pouring into the rooms through the glass windows intensely enough to make it clear that they were past the early morning.

Still inside the inn, they could now resume the travels that they'd been in the middle of when they had first gotten here. However, they would wait until 12:00 noon, when the room expired, to move on, they all decided.

"So, you saw the same dream as me?" Luigi asked Daisy.

She nodded her head. "That . . . frog in the coat. Wart?"

"He seems to demand we pledge our allegiance to Tatanga. I wonder why?" Luigi asked.

"Who knows?"

"Well . . . let's not worry about it too much," Luigi said. "Until the next time we fall asleep. We have things to do. We have to feed the Yoshis. Get them water. Take care of our own hygiene. Eat, drink."

"Breakfast is complimentary," Daisy said.

"Really?" Luigi wasted no time flipping from yellow block to yellow block to find his way down to the ground level, where breakfast was complimentary. Waffles with syrup were complimentary. Bagels, with cream cheese applied with a plastic knife, were complimentary. Orange juice was complimentary. Luigi was piling the food up like a waiter.

Soon enough, Daisy was gathering eggs, a piece of toast, orange juice, and a bowl of cereal filled with milk.

Mario ate ziti with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese.

Peach ate small veggies.

Back inside their room at the inn, they fed the Yoshi some of the complimentary water, as well as giving them some berries and melons. Next, it was time to leave the inn and go on with the adventure. They had to walk the Yoshis, but that would be no problem.

Today's plan: shop around Windtown for a flying artifact, since they were legal here. Fly to Tatanga's ship. Stop him. If they could stop Tatanga before the next time they fell asleep, there would be no need to worry about Wart.

The four Yoshis ran about town, in search of a store that sold flying artifacts.

.

"Do you have anything that makes you fly?" Mario asked, using both arms to gesture flapping his wings.

"Hmmm, generally we do NOT," the manager said. "Sorry."

"Well, what place has them?"

"To be honest, I . . . DO not know."

Mario grumbled.

.

"Do you have stuff to make you fly?" Luigi asked the next store's manager.

"Stuff to make you fly? No. We don't carry that here."

"What?" Luigi shrieked. He started walking away, grumbling. "What kind of place doesn't sell stuff to make you fly?"

.

The Mario Bros. began to develop a suspicious feeling that the managers of these stores just weren't trusting them. They sent Peach and Daisy to do the talking, while the plumbers kept an eye on them from outside, staring in through the glass double-doors at the front entrance.

"We're all sold out of those," said the manager of the third store they'd visited that day.

Wow. Even when the women were the ones asking, they still weren't available. Mario and Luigi sighed. It was beginning to look hopeless.

.

Three shops did not seem to have anything for flight. However, nothing in the names of the stores had suggested flight in particular. Maybe it was time to scan for stores that more directly implied flight. So far, time was going to waste. Time was valuable, considering that the King had been abducted. Not much of it was left.

Outside, Mario noticed that the winds were carrying visible debris. He wondered what exactly it was that he was looking at, making the wind visible. Soon, the wind died down, and the debris continued to fly around. The so-called debris had wings! It was a gnat!

Gnats were everywhere! They were difficult to jump on. They were difficult to see, to locate. Mario wasn't quite sure how to deal with these gnats. For now, he tried jumping up into the air and swatting at them with his white gloved hand. He heard the sound of a few males groaning as they were struck, and a female gnat as well.

Yellow bee-like gnats flew into the scene, gliding through the air with the use of gray wings. Before long, they had sent a dozen more small gnats into the scene, to fly at Mario.

Blue gnats began to fly into the area, flying slower than any other species. Once they settled into one place in the air, Mario had a bad feeling. An orange explosion went off, as four orange sparks flew through the air, heading northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest. Mario ran away to avoid the sparks, while Luigi, Peach, and Daisy attacked the dozens of gnats.

This was painting a very grim idea into Mario's head of what to expect next. Three more yellow bees began to glide through the windy air. One flew at Mario so fast that he was sure it would strike him, and kill him. He ducked his head down, then back up, and jumped up into the air to land on the yellow bee.

Two blue exploding gnats flew through the air, slowly settling into one place in front of Mario's torso. Mario worked quickly to punch one of the blue gnats, followed by the other.

Peach floated through the air, grabbed one blue gnat, and threw it at an oncoming cloud of small gray gnats. Many insects screamed in agony at once.

Mario saw a few blades of red grass growing in the ground, and he pulled it up to unearth a veggie, which he threw right at the gnats. But the gnat attack was not over. Bob-Omb Flies began to fly through the air, in the direction of the humans - 13 of them.

While they were flashing yellow, twice per second, was the time to knock them away. Luigi kicked one, who exploded after being sent back 7 feet through the air. Mario quickly knocked away three in a row with two punches, then ran away as they all began to explode around him. He and Luigi just barely reached a safe distance from the blast radius.

Three more were about to be set off. Mario ran forth, quickly punching one away, before Luigi kicked another back. They both ran away as the third Bob-Omb Fly went off.

A dozen small gray gnats still remained. Their offensive power seemed nonexistent, for now. But Mario didn't want to take any chances. He bopped them with his fist, jumping into the air, knocking the gnats out.

"Whew!" he said, exhausted. "Every town, it's something!"

The area of 4-1 had been gnat-filled, all right. Mario and his friends jumped back onto the Yoshis. As they rode on, the Yoshis gladly ate the gnats that they found.

What they found was the leader of the nest, the queen insect, enormous in size, three times the height of Mario, gliding slowly through the air with the use of wings. She was angry. Remarkably angry.

Four Yoshis were here to help Mario. The green Yoshi threw an eggshell at the insect queen, an eggshell made from one of the gnats he had eaten. The queen seemed slightly hurt. The fight went on. Mario and Luigi jumped into action. Peach floated through the air, and Daisy leaped into the fight as well. Yoshi yelled "Booming hat!" and executed a downward stomp, to land on the insect queen wth.

She spun around in a circle for two full rotations, knocking everyone away.

The gray insect queen was quite possibly winning. Mario grabbed Luigi by the hands, and swung him around in a circle several times, throwing his taller brother into the insect queen. Luigi struck the queen, who was hurt, and flew away in a circle to recooperate.

Mario and his friends were only able to hurt the insect queen about twice per minute. Once they had attacked it four times, it began to show signs of redness and irritation. It only got angrier, faster, in the final stages of the fight. But the four heroes were relentless, and would never give up. Finally, after another two attacks, the insect queen fell to the ground, giving up.

"Wow," Mario said, putting his hands on his knees and catching a breather. "Don't mice eat insects, or something?"

"This is not our usual adventure," Luigi noted. "Not our usual adventure."

Now they were able to resume with their normal duties. The four Yoshis rode around the village, carrying the four humans, until they had scanned over a dozen different buildings, searching for one place in particular, which they finally managed to find.

FLIGHT STORE

"This is it!" Luigi said giddily. Everybody hopped off their Yoshis and walked into the Flight Store. This was just about the end of the adventure, it seemed.

"Welcome!" the mushroom-person manager, wearing a feather in his cap by his right ear, said. "What can I interest you in?"

"Ummmm . . . we need a way to fly," Luigi said.

"Can I interest you in a store-card?"

"No thanks, uhhh, we need to find some way to fly up into the sky. Our goal is to reach Tatanga's spaceship."

"Perfect, hey, I've got just the thing for you, and you know, it's buy 3, get the 4th half-off. Remember that. Now! Over here, we've got . . ." The manager presented the group of people with a vertical arrangement of Raccoon Leaves. "Raccoon Leaves, that is, the reverse-tanuki effect, _you _become like _them_. Some are brown, some are green, as you can see, however, the difference is entirely cosmetic. Both lead to brown ears and a tail. 80 coins."

"Perfect, I'll take 2," Daisy said, handing him some coins.

"All right! Now, understand, you WILL need a clear, open space in which to run, for at least a good 10 meters, before you can achieve liftoff. It's not unlimited, and may not end up taking you all the way to space. However, due to the tail, you are guaranteed a safe landing."

Daisy tried out her Raccoon Leaf by squeezing it with both hands. The transformation was immediate. The leaf's energy covered her entire body in a white cloud for a moment, concealing her from sight, and in seconds the bubbles of white energy had died down to reveal brown raccoon ears over her head, and a raccoon tail growing from behind.

"Here's a mirror," the manager said, showing Daisy what she looked like.

The next row of items was the large feather. "Another object that transforms," he explained. "The Feather Cape bestows upon your back a yellow cape, yellow on the outside, black on the inside. Again, at least a good 10 meters of running, to achieve liftoff. Similar to the Raccoon Leaf, but you can continue to travel up and down, slowly losing velocity. Again, a safe landing is guaranteed with a Feather Cape. 80 coins.

"The Winged Cap. When you wear this cap, its wings enable you to fly. However, it does not last forever, and it WILL wear off after a minute. 80 coins.

"The beet radish. Instead of giving you raccoon ears, it bestows upon you rabbit ears, which guarantees a safe landing from any fall. 40 coins."

"Hmm . . . what else you got here?" Mario asked.

"Well, for 600 coins, FLUDD, the water-based jet-pack. It has three add-on devices, of which we sell only the Rocket Jump add-on. It comes packaged together, here: FLUDD, with Rocket Jump. This would allow you to travel over a dozen meters up into the air."

"We'll need that," Mario said.

"600 coins, we do not have," Luigi reminded him.

"Do you have it used?" Mario asked.

"Yes, here I have a FLUDD unit with a scratch on it, making its price 100 coins."

"Oh! Well. I'll take the one with a scratch on it. 4 of them, actually. And whle I'm at it, we'll also need 4 Raccoon Leaves, to be sure we survive a long fall."

"Coming right up! It's been good doing business with you, Mario!"

.

Outside, it was time to finally fly up into the air and find Tatanga's ship! It was just incredible how easy it had been. Four Raccoon Leaves, four FLUDD units with Rocket Jump enabled . . . it was enough money spent to save the world.

Mario looked up at the sky. "You're all mine, Tatanga," he said confidently.

"Yoshi!" the red Yoshi said. (What are we to do?)

"All you guys have to do is go back to the inn," Mario said. "Once we're done with Tatanga, we'll find some way to get back here, to Windtown, and back to that inn."

"Yoshi!" the red Yoshi replied. (All right!)

The four Yoshis ran off, back to the inn. All four of the people ran in their empowered raccoon forms, and, with enough momentum built up, they took off into the air! Mario and Luigi's tails were flapping back and forth quickly as they left the ground, rising up dozens of feet. Princess Peach followed behind them, and Daisy left the ground for the first time in her life.

Now they were airborne. This was the first time, in today's adventure, that they had all gone airborne. At the crest of their flight, they activated the FLUDD jetpack's Rocket Jump, which used a state-of-the-art water propulsion system to throw the wearer a couple dozen feet higher into the air. This double jump brought them as high up into the air as they could get. Every one of them could hear and feel the sensations of heavy winds hitting their bodies.

At the height of the Rocket Jump, they all looked up to see Tatanga's ship, still higher up above them, far too high for any of them to reach. Unfortunately, they all began to sink back down toward the ground.

"No! No, no! Not the ground!" Mario yelled, but it was entirely true: no artifact in town could bring someone all the way to Tatanga's ship. They had been naive to think it would work.

Luigi tried to follow Mario, as the two brothers flapped their tails endlessly to accomplish a slow landing. Peach and Daisy tried to follow Mario and Luigi. The ground was still so many dozens of feet below them. It would take a while for the ground to grow closer.

They all landed on the ground, Mario and Daisy in one area, Luigi and Peach in another. Mario and Daisy had landed in area 4-5, and Luigi and Peach had landed n 4-6.

"Peach? Peach?" Mario yelled, but the sounds of heavy winds drowned out his voice.

Windtown, infamous for its heavy winds, was also filled with visible debris at this point. No longer were the gnats attacking. Now, normal debris made the wind visible. Two kids were bouncing around together on a green trampoline, only to fly up into the air and be carried off, gone with the wind. Luigi and Peach walked slowly, carefully, their feet not leaving the ground.

"And they called Chicago the Windy City," Luigi joked.

Para-Goombas, with brown wings, were flying around up in the air, along wth Para-Koopas, with white wings, flying Fuzzies, blue exploding gnats, and yellow bees. All at once, these flying monsters came at them, apparently loving to dwell in Windtown.

Luigi and Peach would have to deal with this themselves. Luigi leaped up into the air, and flew right at his enemies. Peach leaped up as well, knowing that it was only for a few seconds that she could levitate.

In the intense winds, every living thing was forced to move quickly through the landscape at once. It certainly changed the way they traveled. However, it soon became clear to them both that another half a minute of walking would bring them to a cliffside, where the ground could not be seen in the mists hundreds of feet below.

The empty chasm had mushrooms growing out of the ground, mushrooms which were, by now, hundreds of feet high. The stems were light orange, almost white. The mushroom heads were red and orange. Although Luigi and Peach had no choice but to leap off the edge of the cliff, these enormous mushrooms gave them some option of safety.

Luigi jumped onto one mushroom in the pit, a mushroom whose head was bigger than his entire body. The mushroom began to lean in the direction in which he was standing. Quickly, he jumped from mushroom to mushroom, trying not to look down below, where the ground was hundreds of feet below, down in the mists.

Peach had all the advantage here. She could float through the air for 2.5 seconds. She was able to minimize the time she spent having physical contact with the mushrooms.

Still, where had Mario and Daisy gotten to?

.

Mario and Daisy, in area 4-5, were also running with the wind, moving dangerously fast, along with any monsters outside in the area. Being forced to run with the wind, Mario and Daisy finally took a moment to get a running start, before flying up into the air again, for all four were still armed with Raccoon Leaves.

Up in the air, he found a swarm of winged Goombas, Koopas, and Para-Beetles, flying at him at fast speeds in the wind. A red Para-Beetle just about hit Mario's body. Mario swatted at it with his raccoon tail, and the animal was knocked away, to fall to the ground.

Mario and Daisy were slowly settling back to the ground level, and now, Daisy understood, truthfully, that it was up to her to fight the monsters or else be killed by them. She struck a Para-Koopa with her tail, knocking it away. Still descending toward the ground, she was shocked by how well she was surviving all this.

The black debris in the air made the wind visible, and it made the area difficult to see. But that wouldn't stop Mario or Daisy. They jumped onto a green trampoline, launching up into the air to be taken away by the wind. They continued to land on the heads and bodies of monsters wherever they went.

After a while, the winds began to calm down, for a minute. "Let's fly up into the air, and find the other two," Mario suggested.

"Okay," Daisy said.

Mario began to run, and he waited until Daisy was by his side for himself to resume running. "Let's take off into the air at the same time!" Mario yelled. Soon enough, running as fast as they could, both Mario and Daisy leaped up into the air, and flapped their tails to bring their flight from one mere jump to a continuous flight.

Up into the air they both went. The higher Mario's body soared, with the flapping of his raccoon tail, the more of the area he was able to see. At last, on his way down, he was able to locate Luigi and Peach, a fair distance away.

"Daisy!" Mario yelled. "Just follow me!" Mario slowly began to descend again, flapping his tail repeatedly. Daisy did her best to follow him without getting lost.

Luigi and Peach were still jumping from mushroom to mushroom, making sure not to fall into the chasm hundreds of feet deep. Luigi jumped slowly, landing on a winged Para-Koopa and jumping up higher as a result. After another 3 jumps across enormous mushrooms, Luigi and Peach had made their way to the end of the mushroom pit, and back to normal land. Running quickly across the ground, Luigi and Peach found their way back to Mario and Daisy.

Mario and Peach ran back into each other's arms. Luigi and Daisy ran back into each other's arms. At last, both couples were back together. They took a moment to savor their reunion. Soon enough, the four heroes were traveling down the road together, side-by-side. They were far from the inn, where they had left the Yoshis, by now. They would go back there, soon enough. That would happen after they rescued the King from Tatanga.

"Are you ready to try again?" Mario asked.

Luigi nodded his head: yes.

Mario spent a minute telling his comrades how important it was that they all run together, at exactly the same time. All four people were standing next to one another as they got ready to run. All four took a running start, and Mario counted to 3, out loud, to signal when to achieve liftoff. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy used their racoon-powered flight to take off into the air.

It took a short time for everyone to reach the crest of their flight. The FLUDD water-based jetpack, with its Rocket Jump, boosted them another long distance higher up.

They had gotten closer to Tatanga's ship this time. But not close enough to reach it. All four of them began to fall back down through the air again. "No! No, no, NOOOO!" Mario yelled, refusing to believe it. Yet it was happening, for the second time in a row: they had failed to actually reach Tatanga's ship.

Mario kept an eye on his comrades, this time, as they all fell. Nobody would get lost, if he had his way. All four were able to land a pretty short distance from one another, once they all got to the ground. Gone were the go-karts, and gone were the Yoshis. Yet, once they got back to the Yoshis, they would use them to help deliver gasoline back to the Go-Karts, which they would drive back to the Mushroom Kingdom.

In the meantime: where were they?

"We flew over most of the land," Mario said. "So, who knows what it would have had. Hmm. Let me see here. According to this area of the map . . . let me see here . . . it would appear that we are just barely west of the area marked 4-8."

"4-8?" Luigi asked. "So we're almost out of Windtown?"

"We're almost at the next land over," Mario said.

They all walked past an ELECTRONICS shop. Two large holes served as windows, through which they could see the red and orange TV sets sold inside. "Hey! Look at that!" Mario said. "Our decision to bring TV to the Mushroom Kingdom has paid off after all."

"It has?" Luigi asked. The four people walked inside the store, and Mario turned on one of the TV sets. At first, it played nothing but static. But, in time, a hushed silence fell over the TV set, as Tatanga's face appeared against an empty black backdrop again.

"Mario. You're doing . . . remarkably well," Tatanga said. "I have eyes and ears both in my ship, and on the ground. I have been . . . monitoring your performance . . . however, know this. You will never make it to my ship. Never. I have the leader of the humanes, and in time, he will serve my army, as the entire kingdom that he ruled - the entire galaxy - becomes mine."

He wanted the whole _galaxy? _Well, it kind of made sense. "Doesn't he have enough galaxies already?" Luigi asked.

After 7 seconds, Tatanga said "No, Luigi, I do not have enough galaxies already! Mario and Luigi. Although you fight and resist now, you will, in time, be serving me as my two champions, who will live in my castle and fight my enemies for me as I command. This will be done. Tatanga out." Tatanga's face faded away, replaced with alien text which scrolled about the TV screen frantically, not turning into static.

Peach began to cry.

"We have to do something," Mario said. "We've rescued the King before . . . when he had been turned into a dog by King Koopa. We can rescue him from his abduction. We must!"

"HOW? Peach screamed. "Flight didn't work! FLUDD didn't work! How can we reach Tatanga's ship now?"

". . . We find a way to get abducted," Mario said.

"Explain to me how."

"All right. Remember when we beat Mouser? His body was broken apart into pieces during Tatanga's 'beaming' process. You see, all we had to do, right then, was to touch Mouser, and we would have been caught in the path of the beaming beam! So, you see, what we need to do is to beat up one of Tatanga's minions, his servants, again. When he gets beamed back to Tatanga, we grab onto him, and accompany the servant back to Tatanga's ship!"

"Why did we not think of this before?"

"Well, we've thought of it now. Let's give this a shot!"

If Mario was correct in his attempts to predict Tatanga's behavior, the spacelord would have likely conquered the area of 5-1. More of Tatanga's lackeys were probably around here. Logcally, they would have to be. They would be his way to Tatanga's ship.

They walked for only a few minutes when they found a wooden sign planted in the ground. WELCOME TO NEON LAND. The neon-yellow sign was placed before two brown trees, which hid absolutely everything beyond. Mario and Luigi walked between the two trees to find the hidden path into this new town, to the area where a smaller sign read 5-1.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy might have failed to reach Tatanga's ship, twice, but now they had reached Neon Land. The adventure went on. The enormous orange flaming eye, in the far distance, was much closer now.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Neon Land had been pretty well-hidden from the outside, but once they got past the trees, and the long stretch of dirt road that began between them, Mario and his friends found a land that was neon-colored by nature. So this was where the whole concept of neon color, a concept that seemed to apply only to paint and ink and electronic signs, really came from.

Light neon green trees, whose trunks were sky-blue. A neon purple ground. Neon pink birds flying through the air. Everything in Neon Land appeared both intensely light and vibrant at once. This was certainly a different terrain than the Rice Fields, although there was some small stretch of land of neon green rice on the grounds here. Water was light neon blue in this land.

The time of day was still early evening, so they weren't navigating through the place in total darkness, yet. They were also well past the hottest hour of the day. It was a pleasant walk, through Neon Land. Mario looked around again. All around him was the wilderness of nature, with some dirt roads. In the far distance, neon green mountains could be seen from miles away.

"This is a cool-looking place," Mario said. "But we have no business in this town. It's Tatanga's ship that we want to get to."

"So, it's a matter of finding someone who works for Tatanga," Luigi said. "Once we beat him up, and defeat him in battle, he'll be transported to Tatanga's ship, and we can follow him there. But when's that ever gonna happen again?"

"It's simple, Luigi," Mario said. "He has his eyes and ears on us - surveillance. He'll send his minions after us. If we walk through this land, we'll certainly find something he beams at us."

Looking again, Luigi could have sworn he saw two black shadows, somewhere, but they pulled themselves out of sight. Looking on, it was clear that there was nothing around here, but the light neon green trees. Still, Luigi was pretty certain he had seen something before. So he walked forward, slowly, one foot at a time, to approach the tree that he had thought he'd seen the shadows hide behind.

Black silhouettes flipped quickly from tree to tree, from branch to branch. In a short time, Mario and Luigi were surrounded by them. They began to drop down from the tree branches, to make themselves seen on the ground. 8 ninjas, wearing all black, rose up to their feet and surrounded Mario and Luigi in a circle.

Both plumbers stood back-to-back as they punched and kicked an oncoming horde of Ninjis, all dressed in the same black attire. The enemies leaped up into the air, attempting to kick Mario and Luigi in the head area. Mario and Luigi got ready to fight, knocking them back with the sides of their hands, one at a time. Finally, when there were only two left standing, they both threw small grenades to the ground, which let out enormous amounts of fog, creating a cover for the Ninjis to hide behind, before they flipped out of sight.

It took a while for the cloud of fog to spread out to the point where the area could be seen again. The four heroes were coughing, waving the fog away with their arms.

"What was all THAT about?" Peach asked.

"I have no idea!" Luigi said. "Apparently, every land has its own thing going on. Whether or not these ninjas actually work for Tatanga, we can't prove."

"What were those guys's PROBLEM?" Mario yelled.

Clap . . . clap . . . clap. An old mushroom-person man, with the palest skin of any mushroom-person Mario had ever yet seen, was wearing a tall red and blue hat, reaching up over 20 inches tall, while having a long gray beard and wearing a long red and blue robe.

"Who are you?" Mario asked.

"I am Mu Chi Room," the man said. "Leader of the Deadly Fungus clan. Otherwise known as: Mushroom Ninja."

"And those men . . . they were with you?" Mario asked.

"No! Heavens, no! Those were the Ninjis you encountered. They are from an island far from here. They are the enemies of us Deadly Fungus clan . . . forever!"

". . . You hate them, and they hate you," Mario said.

"CORRECT! They are traitors!"

"Are you able to defend yourselves from them?" Mario asked.

"Please!" Mu Chi Room had interpreted that as an insult. "The Ninjis learned what they knew from us. They trained with us! They trained under me! They promised never to misuse their knowledge of the Mushroom Ninja. Then they went off, and . . . and ran back to their island, and taught them our martial arts. Those Ninjis may appear skillful, but they learned what they know from me!"

"Then why are they here?" Mario asked. "If they live on an island . . ."

"If the Ninjis are here, it can only mean one thing. There is someone they are looking for. Someone they were paid to go after. Who this person is, I do not know," Mu Chi Room said while pacing around anxiously in circles. "For now I will assume that it is me they are after."

"Sounds awful," Mario said. "Do you need our help?"

"No," MCR said. "We do not. Do you need ours?"

Mario was confused.

.

A minute later, Mario and Mu Chi Room were training together, higher up in the hills of Neon Land. Mu Chi Room assumed the square-horse-stance position. "Square horse stance!" he yelled. He assumed another pose. "Cat stance!" He assumed another pose. "Bo stance!" He demonstrated this to Mario, then went back to the first pose. "Square horse stance!"

A minute later, he had Mario imitating him. "Square horse stance!" MCR said, and the two plumbers assumed the square-horse stance. Mario was lagging behind MCR, and Luigi was lagging behind Mario. "Cat stance! Bo stance! Square horse stance!"

Peach and Daisy were watching at the ground level. "We're more crane and mantis style," Daisy said.

10 minutes later, Mario and Luigi were getting the hang of it. Square horse stance. Cat stance. Bo stance. Next, they were taught to add punching attacks to the bo stance.

Time began to fly by, and in no time at all, Luigi learned that he and Mario had been training with Mu Chi Room for 2 hours already. At last, they had gotten to a level of decent martial arts capability.

"This was exhausting," Luigi said. "Still, I feel like I've learned a lot in a short period of time!" It was, of course, still his very first day, and he was no expert, yet. But he had already learned the starting basics.

Mu Chi Room was glad to teach the plumbers the ways of martial arts. But now it was gettng dark out. People used light neon green lanterns to see their way around in the dark. The sky overhead was dark blue. The neon colors all over town still looked like light shades of their colors, but they were surrounded by darkness. There was no way they were continuing their travel. Tomorrow, Day 3 of the travel, they could resume.

"Wait. Where are Peach and Daisy?" Mario asked.

The two women were just starting to walk back to the area, visible from a far distance. "Oh. There they are," Luigi said, pointing.

"Training is over for the day," MCR said. "Farewell, Mario and Luigi."

In a short while, when Peach and Daisy had gotten back to their boyfriends, the four went back to traveling. "You are not from here," MCR said. "Where are the four of you sleeping?"

"Uhhhh," Mario said. "Well . . . that's the thing. We're all . . . traveling right now. We don't really . . . have any place to sleep here."

Really?" MCR asked. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

.

Soon, MCR was taking the two to a mushroom-house, white in color on the outside, with a black roof with white circles. MCR opened the sliding door to the left, and showed the two plumbers inside. This was a house that was always empty of permanent occupants, but ready to be used as a guest house for anyone who truly needed it for the night. Two large beds were ready-made for the guests.

One of the pale-skinned mushroom-people was inside this house as well. "I'll get you some food and some drink," he said.

"Oh, you don't have to," Luigi replied.

"No, really. I insist."

The mushroom-person left the house, sliding the door shut behind him. Luigi looked at the man, waited until he was sure he had left, and then back at Mario. "He looks just like Toad, except Chinese," Luigi said. "Don't you think?" Mario nodded his head quickly.

Soon enough, the mushroom-person came back with food. Mario and Luigi tried not to laugh, knowing how similar he looked to their friend from the Mushroom Kingdom. "We're sorry," the man explained. "But the strawberries are out, in the castle. There is, however, a pretty good selection of Chinese food here."

"What kind of food?" Luigi asked.

"Nothing special. Just the same old stuff we eat every day." Luigi looked for himself. Crispy noodles. Egg rolls. Kung pao chicken, with baby corn. White rice. Chicken fried rice. Egg drop soup. Steamed dumplings. Fortune cookies.

"Mario, you go on without me," Luigi said. "I'll just stay here in Neon Land for a while."

Once the four were done eating, and drinking plenty of water, they went to the bathroom. After fixing up the minor leak in the bathroom faucet, which was causing it to drip two drops of water per second even when the faucet was completely shut, and after unclogging the drain in the bathtub that had been built up over time from cat hair, Mario took off his gloves for the night, washed his hands, and was ready for bed.

.

A blue wall of water was rippling with energy non-stop. It was mesmerizing to look at. But it was difficult to see beyond the black, shadowy silhouette that blocked its path. Slowly, that shadow came into focus . . . Wart.

"Hello, plumbers," he said. "I guess you survived those Poison Mushrooms I sent you. Gwaaah ha ha haaa!" Now, looking past Wart, Mario and Luigi could see a whole army of Poison Mushrooms coming at them. Dozens and dozens of Poison Mushrooms were sliding their way at once, moving across the ground with zero reaction to friction.

.

"Gaaaah!" Mario yelled, waking up. It was still dark out. 3 a.m. was his guess, assuming he'd fallen asleep around 10:30 p.m. He had needed to wake up fast enough, before that whole barrage of poison mushrooms reached him and his brother; his mind seemed to have jolted his body awake. Mario's heart was beating quickly. It was difficult to fall back asleep now.

"Whoaaaah," Luigi yelled as he woke up in the other of two twin blue beds. He breathed for a moment.

Peach and Daisy woke up. "Wart again," they both said at once.

"We'll deal with Wart," Luigi said. "He works for Tatanga, and we'll deal with Tatanga. That will be the end of that. Still . . . we do need our sleep." Trying not to be bothered by the nightmares, Mario and Luigi went on back to sleep.

.

Mu Chi Room opened the door and walked inside. He stood right before Mario's body, and all at once stopped moving, staring dead at Mario's head. Mario wondered what the man was about to say. But he said nothing.

Luigi looked. He could see Mu Chi Room from the back. His skin appeared red. That was a little eerie.

Mario looked at Mu Chi Room. "Yes?" Mario asked.

MCR's face opened up into three claws, as he screamed: "RAAAAAAAAAAWWW!"

.

"GAH!" Mario yelled, waking up in bed. It was bright and sunny outside now. The house was still the same, but Mu Chi Room was not inside it.

Luigi woke up. "G'oh!" he yelled.

"More dreams from Wart," Mario said, climbing up out of bed. "No matter. We still won't pledge ourselves to Tatanga anyway. Right, Luigi?"

"Right, Mario. All we have to worry about is a few things. Neon Land. The Ninjis. Mu Chi Room, and his Mushroom Ninja clan. And Tatanga. Once we stop Tatanga, we're done."

The two plumbers were treated to complimentary breakfast and water. It was kind of funny, how it seemed as though they had just gotten done with eating, yet after waking up they had to go through it all over again. Once they finished another delicious meal of Chinese food, they went to the bathroom. They used a few of the many complimentary guest toothbrushes, kept in cases, in the bathroom to brush their teeth, after flossing, after rinsing their mouths out for 60 seconds with mouthwash. Then, finally, they were ready to resume with their travels.

There was only one door in this mushroom-house. Stepping outside, Mario headed the walk into the outdoors of Neon Land. It was the beginning of the day - before the hottest hours. This was Day 3, and he intended for it to be the final day.

"Let's remember our objectives," Mario said. "We want to find someone who works for Tatanga. We beat him up. We watch him get beamed back to Tatanga's ship. Then we grab the person and get beamed back up with him!"

The four people walked, single file, for a short time, when they found Mu Chi Room again. The real Mu Chi Room. "Did you enjoy your stay in the guest house?" he asked.

Mario nodded his head: yes.

"Excellent. Would you like to continue your training, under us Mushroom Ninja?"

"I'm sorry, but . . . I'm afraid I can't," he said. "I have business to take care of. The King of the Mushroom Kingdom was abducted by Tatanga, and I need to find him. So, we must all be traveling on."

"Really? Well, then. I wish you all good luck. But I warn you that there are Metroids in some areas out there. Be careful about what numbered areas you walk through."

Mario shivered for a second. "Metroids?"

"Yes. Well . . . have a good one." Mu Chi Room remained still, and after a while, Mario and his three friends walked on, without him.

.

They walked for a long time, but didn't seem to reach the end of the area of 5-1. It was awfully difficult without a go-kart, and without the Yoshis. Still, it wouldn't be that bad. This was the final land of the journey. Right?

Another 10 minutes of walkng later, they finally noticed the sign in the ground reading 5-2. They walked on, knowing the warning that this was where they might encounter dangerous Metroids. They would not be the same as the Ninjis encountered in 5-1.

Looking up, the group of four noticed about 17 of these Metroids, appearing like jellyfish with transluscent skin to leave the brain visible, floating through the air. Slowly, one meter at a time, the Metroids descended in a diagonal direction toward the ground in Neon Land.

"That's them!" Mu Chi Room screamed, running to Mario's side. "The Metroids! The Metroids! Nobody knows where they came from. Some speculate they came from the sea."

"No," Mario said. "I've read about them. Metroids are a species of aliens from space."

"Space?" Mu Chi Room asked. "Bare space?"

"Well . . . not necessarily. These Metroids come from the planet Zebes. It's not even in our galaxy. Unless, of course . . . unless Tatanga abducted some Metroids . . . and made them work for him, and fight for him. It was about the same offer he made me."

"I'm sorry, what are you saying? You make no sense."

"These Metroids you speak of, they most likely are working for Tatanga, a conqueror of planets and galaxies. How long have they been in town?"

"Not long. Two days ago, was when they first appeared."

"That confirms it," Mario said, nodding his head. "That would match Tatanga's patterns. His invasion of this world has only been in progress for two days, that I know of. These Metroids must work for him. If we can fight them, we can demand that they take us to their leader."

"Is that your strategy?" MCR asked, laughing.

"Yes. Yes, it is my strategy." Mario was serious, and he had finished his sentence without breaking his serious face. It was on, then.

Mario and Luigi quickly got ready in the bo stance, firing away with punch after punch, even before the Metroids had reached the ground. Six claws, on the lowest part of the Metroids' bodies, extended and retracted as they flew through the air. Soon enough, they were only 30 feet above the plumbers.

"What do we have to fight these Metroids with?" Mario asked.

"I've got something," Peach said. She squeezed the Fire-Flower in her hands. Immediately, magic energy overtook her body. Her blonde hair became red, the color of fire. Her pink dress became orange, because orange is the new pink. She nodded her head to Daisy.

Daisy nodded her head back. "Let's play with fire," she said, squeezing a Fire-Flower. Her hair became orange, but her dress remained yellow. The two women looked like a fiery pair.

It was not just a dozen, or even 17 Metroids, making their diagonally-aimed flight toward the ground to come at the humans. It was an entire army. Dozens. Too many to count. Most likely, 50 Metroids were coming at them. In a short time, they reached the ground, floating not too high above it, coming at Mario and his three friends.

Mario jumped up into the air. Luigi jumped up as well. They were surrounded by the Metroids now, but they wouldn't stop. They continued to jump, no matter how hopeless it appeared for them.

"Hey Metroids!" Peach yelled. She opened fire with as many fireballs in a row as she could manage. Without walking, she knocked down 12 Metroids in a row. Then, when they were fallen, she began to walk ahead, slowly, using both hands to spit out the fireballs.

Peach and Daisy stood back-to-back, opening fire on everything that came their way. One by one, the army of flying Metroids fell to the ground, with most being lucky enough to have not caught fire, for the fireballs dissipated due to the fast speed of all the action.

Mario and Luigi could no longer jump up, once the Metroids established a living barrier just above their heads. If they did jump up, it would not be into the open air, to land on the head of a Metroid, but it would be right into their six claws, and that would be the end of them. No longer could they jump! They had become completely disarmed.

But they could still fight. Assuming the cat stance, and smoothly turning it into the bo stance, to become a lethal series of three attacks, was child's play to Luigi by now. He leaped up into the air and kicked his feet out into a Metroid's head. He grabbed one Metroid, and threw it upward, into the living barrier. Peach and Daisy attacked the living barrier from the bottom, setting everything on fire, and creating a barrier of flame for the Metroids.

It took little time now for Mario and his three friends to wrestle control of the situation. Peach and Daisy just would not stop firing away with fireballs. Mario and Luigi jumped up into the air and fought the aliens. Finally, in time, only a few remained, and they flew away, back toward Tatanga's ship. They were beamed away, to safety - without Mario and Luigi being able to grab them, from the ground.

It took a while for the four to breathe and see that the action was over. Peach and Daisy were still armed with fire power. "Want to travel with us?" Mario asked Mu Chi Room.

"Okay," Mu Chi Room said. Success! Mu Chi Room joined the group of four!

Walking with his walking stick, Mu Chi Room led the way through the terrain of Area 5-2, all neon jungle terrain with a natural dirt road. As they walked down the dirt road's curves and bends and turns, unable to see far ahead, they found more Ninjis leaping at them from the bushes. In no time at all, the five people were covered in Ninji attackers!

"Hiwa-ya-kaaaaah!" Luigi screamed, knocking one Ninji off him, followed by the other. They all took a moment to fight off their Ninji attackers. Then, on they traveled through the jungle.

Every now and then, a small group of Metroids came at them. They weren't difficult to deal with. A single jump and bop, like any other monster. The four heroes walked on, seeing how much easier this felt than it had yesterday, or the day before. But they could never afford to grow overconfident.

5-3 was more quiet neon grassland terrain. Ahead of them, a traveling group of four monsters, a Goomba, a Koopa, a Shyguy, and a Snifit, strolled along together, and the Snifit fired a bead at Princess Peach.

The bead missed. Peach was relieved. Now it was her turn. She fired a fireball at the Snifit, destroying it.

Daisy's turn. She spit a fireball out of her hands at the Koopa, the most physically powerful of the monsters standing. Only the Goomba and Shyguy still remained standing.

"Okay, our turn now," the Goomba said, and he ran at Mario, biting the plumber with his sharp jaws.

"Ahhh!" Mario yelled, knowing he could only endure one more such blow.

The Shyguy laughed. He ran at Luigi, ramming his mask into Luigi's chin, knocking the tall plumber back. "Ouuuuch!" Luigi yelled, though he knew that it was better for him to be knocked down to Mario's condition than to let Mario be struck again, and left dead.

"Okay, now it's my turn again," Peach yelled. She fired fireball after fireball after fireball after fireball at the Goomba, who had bit Mario.

"And now it's mine," Daisy said, having waited patiently enough. She fired the same number of fireballs at the Shyguy.

The four had won! It was hard to argue against it now. These four people were a team. Mario and Luigi were still in poor physical condition, but they would live.

"You all could have done better," Mu Chi Room said. "Luigi, you were slouching the whole time. Mario, you should have been leading by example. Peach and Daisy . . . without those Fire-Flowers, you would consider yourself defenseless. You must use your own self as your fire power. And will you all stand up straight for once?"

The four groaned, for this was one of those moments when they didn't want to have to deal with all this. But they did walk on.

After another quarter-mile, they found some action in the neon nature. Plants rustled about, more so than they normally would in the wind, shortly before Ninjis leaped out of the nature to attack Mario and his four friends. The four heroes quickly got to action, fighting the Ninjis. As they walked on, several more Metroids came at them from the fields of tall grass, flying up into the air and homing in quickly on the humans.

Mario and Luigi jumped on and destroyed all the Ninjis and Metroids that they encountered. Then, Mario decided to steal some black ninja attire from the Ninjis, transforming the appearance of the plumbers yet again. Now Mario and Luigi had invented a new form for themselves. "The Ninja Mario Bros.!" Mario yelled.

Now Mario and Luigi were walking through the town, dressed in the black ninja attire, leaving only their eyes and a third of their nose revealed. Dressed in black, they would be impossible to see at night time.

"Why is this necessary?" Luigi asked.

"This will help us get to Tatanga's ship," Mario explained to Luigi. "He will never beam up his servants if he knows we're going to try to grab them. He has his eyes and ears focused on us at all times. So, we must be like the ninja, and remain hidden, and leap forth to spring our attack, grabbing the men right as they start to get beamed up to Tatanga's ship."

"Aw, heck, everything else has failed. Why not?" Luigi asked himself.

Mario hid down behind a green bush. In seconds, he seemed invisible. Luigi ducked down behind a similar green bush, and, in seconds, he seemed invisible, too. Both of them appeared to be nowhere in the area at all. Two Shyguys passed by the area. As fast as he possibly could, Mario ran forth, grabbed one Shyguy, and threw him into the other.

"That's it! Dieee!" the Shyguy in pink yelled, charging at Mario.

POOF! A smoke grenade was set off, sending smoke everywhere. The Shyguy could no longer see Mario through all the smoke. Once it had wafted away to the point where the Shyguy could see his way around again, Mario was out of sight.

"!" the Shyguy yelled. "Baffling."

Meanwhile, Tatanga was sitting back in his chair, eying his holographic projector. While Mario was used to looking at a glass LCD screen, surrounded by a solid frame, to watch TV, the holographic projector was a projector of all colors of light, projecting the holographic images upward, with no glass screen or border, to make images that were 3-dimensional, rather than flat and 2-D, like regular TV. Tatanga was watching Peach and Daisy at the ground level, for his eyes and ears - cameras and audio surveillance - had all of Fungai covered to the point where nothing was hidden.

Tatanga used some Atari-style joysticks to zoom in with one camera, to see, from an aerial angle, the smoke grenade that Mario had thrown to the ground. Another holographic projection showed Tatanga a grounded camera angle.

"Cackletta!" Tatanga sceamed into a microphone. "Make sure Mario and his friends become very . . . sleepy!"

Cackletta, the green-skinned witch, cackled loudly, communicating with the radio equipment with her own body, mind, and sorcery. "Why do you want them to be sleepy?" she asked.

"So that they may fall victim to Wart. But I didn't pay you so much to ask questions. I paid you to help me deal with Mario and Luigi. I don't want them dead, necessarily. Just defeated, hurt, and abducted into my ship, so that I may discuss my offer of their servitude to me. Make sure Mario and his friends become exhausted!"

"Yes, Master!" she said. "I've got just the thing . . . sleepy powder!"

.

Cackletta flew through the air, using an ordinary broomstick, high above Mario and his four friends. Their location had been determined by Tatanga's cameras, and their coordinates. Now Cackletta flew quickly, dropping yellow sleepy powder upon the ground as she did so.

"Haaaa ha ha ha haaaaa!" she screamed. "Grow sleepy . . . sleepy . . . sleepy!"

Mario and his four friends were shocked to see the green witch flying around. "I wonder what is her deal?" Luigi asked. He yawned, sleepy already. Within less than 10 seconds, all five people in the traveling group had fallen to the ground, dead exhausted.

"Cackletta reporting," she said. "I have done my job."

"Indeed, you have," Tatanga said. Sitting in his floating chair, Tatanga looked at the holographic projector to find Mario and his friends collapsing, one by one, just 7 seconds after it had happened for real.

"Looks like I will win," Tatanga said with a laugh.

.

"Still you refuse to serve Tatanga!" Wart screamed. What? No! Wart was back! Now Wart was grabbing Mario by the overalls, pulling him tightly closer. "Now, remember. My nightmare tortures will end, once you pledge your loyalties to Tatanga!"

"Get off! Get OUT of my dream!" Mario yelled, and Wart dissipated into a cloud of dust, which became at least 60 small clouds of dust, each of which looked like a blue Goomba. Slowly, all the dust was gone from sight.

Mario looked around, to find that he, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and Mu Chi Room were inside an empty room, an abandoned tiki bar. Gone were the ninja outfits. But as they looked around the empty room, they soon found themselves surrounded by 17 Dry Bones, who had appeared from nowhere as the humans kept turning their heads.

17 Dry Bones. These creatures were the zombie, undead, reanimated remains of Koopa turtles, killed personally by Mario and Luigi, with nothing left of their walking, reanimated bodies but bone. Mario jumped on the Dry Bones monsters repeatedly. But it was never enough. In seconds, they always reformed themselves, their bones putting themselves back into place, so that the monsters could come right back to life. The four continued to be surrounded by the undead Dry Bones, without end.

"You know how to make this end!" Wart yelled, his voice coming from all the corners of the room. "Now, who do you serve?"

"Not you, and not Tatanga!" Mario yelled. Still, he fought the hopeless battle, of himself against the Dry Bones. They were increasing in number. There were twice as many of them now. The humans were surrounded by their skulls, their arms, their hands. Five times as many Dry Bones now. The four people were drowning in them.

.

"Gaaasp!" Mario yelled, waking up in bed.

He was alone now, inside a room at the inn. The wall was purple. No way could it be real. Mario looked away, at the opposite wall, to see himself and his friends laying unconscious on the ground, in an animating video image that served as the wallpaper for one entire wall. Mario looked back to the purple wall, to see an image of Wart against the purple.

"Hello," Wart said, as an animated design, 16 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall. "Your nightmares are not over, Mario. Not until you say it!"

"Never!" Mario yelled, and he threw veggies from the bed to hit the wall, striking Wart.

The veggies struck the wall, bouncing off and doing no damage to Wart. The veggies themselves had an angry, evil possessed smile on their faces. Mario shuddered. Wart laughed . . . and laughed . . . and laughed. The evil veggies threw themselves at Mario's face.

"Gah! Ahh!" Mario yelled, punching and kicking the evil veggies away. "Now you leave me and my brother alone! As well as leaving both princesses alone," he said clearly.

"Neverrrrr," Wart said while rippling out of existence. "You and your deadbeat brother . . . are miiiiine."

The walls all collapsed. Mario was outside again. The walls of the collapsed house remained in sight. "Where . . . am I?" he asked.

"The Lost Levels," Wart said. "You are stuck here!"

Mario screamed: "NOOOOOO!"

.

"Remember Luigi's Mansion? Well, it's back," Wart said to Luigi inside a pitch-dark house. "You're back in that house. It's 2 a.m. You are all alone. Completely alone, inside this dark, creepy mansion. Oh . . . and this time, you have no vaccuum or flashlght with you."

Wart's body was illuminated with light, inside the foyer of Luigi's Mansion.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop!" Luigi yelled, running at Wart, using both hands to smear him away. Indeed, Wart was soon gone. But Luigi was still alone in the dark house.

.

Daisy woke up in a field of white and green. She was alone, it appeared, for miles.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Looking all around, the wind gently blew through the white and green plant life, making some sound. But she was all alone. She felt creeped out. A chill took over her body. "Luigi?" she asked.

Rustling to her north! Rustling to her southeast! She was not alone. Indeed, something was out here!

"Rabbits!" Daisy yelled with surprise.

The rabbits just kept on hopping. They weren't so dangerous. They were cute and cuddly. One by one, a crowd of scarecrows continued to emerge from the fields of plants. The scarecrows, walking with stiff legs that could not bend easily, walked slowly to surround Daisy and silently overpower her. "No! No, no, no! No! NOOO!" she yelled, but there were too many of them around her now. She was covered in them. She was a goner, and would just have to give up now. Overhead, the sky was dark, blue and purple, with many stars twinkling.

.

Mario and Luigi were running down a bridge made of flat yellow blocks, the kind with black eyes painted on them. The bridge of blocks was only one block thick. As they ran, evil red-and-black versions of Cheep-Cheep fish leaped up out of the water and flew around them in a ring, chanting "Oooone-two, Wart is coming for you . . ."

"Gahh!" Luigi yelled, waking up to find that he was lying on his back on a doctor's chair.

"Luigi. Relax," Daisy said.

"Oh. Whew. Daisy!" Luigi said.

Looking again, he realized that it was not Daisy. IT WAS A WEREWOLF.

"Gahh-gah roaaaar!" the werewolf screamed.

"No! No, no, no!" Luigi screamed.

The dream fell to blackness.

.

A pit of lava. Princess Peach was standing on one very small square of gray stone, floating over an enormous pit of lava.

"Can I move now?" Peach asked.

"Only if you want to fall into the lava," King Koopa, also known as Bowser, said to her.

She sighed. "Mario's going to come for me!" she yelled.

"Not this time. This time, you lose. This time, nobody saves you." A metal cage clamped shut all around Peach. _CLANG!_

Peach began to cry. "Please! Please, please don't do this!" she yelled, rattling the vertical bars with both hands.

"You will remain behind bars as long as you continue to refuse me," King Bowser Koopa said sternly.

.

Peach, fast asleep, was kicking and thrashing, screaming "No! No, please don't do this! Please don't do this! Let me go!"

Mario could see she was distressed. "PEACH!" he screamed, shaking her body to wake her up.

"Gah!" she yelled, waking up at last. Now Mario had to wake up his brother, Luigi, who, in turn, woke up Daisy.

Outside. They were outside, in the fields of grass, laying around. "We fell asleep?" Peach screamed. It was dark outside now! This was impossible!

Everybody stood up. Their four bodies felt like garbage. They hadn't eaten enough. They lacked water. They were drenched in sweat. Their muscles were sore, aching, painful. Ligaments had grown uneven. Their eyes were covered in oils, sweats, yellow crust, and otherwise felt heavy. Luigi threw up onto the ground.

"We all saw Wart again," Mario yelled. "He's still there, in our dreams. We have not stopped him yet. But, remember. Wart works for Tatanga. If we stop Tatanga, we stop Wart."

"How are we supposed to stop Tatanga?" Luigi asked. "Even without Wart plaguing our dreams."

"We'll find some way," Mario said. He led the difficult walk across the ground, back to . . . "Wait, where am I going?"

Mu Chi Room was up and awake again. "Come," he said. "I will take you to an inn." So Mu Chi Room led the walk through the town, and to the best inn ever. Inside, at the front desk, Mu Chi Room paid the coins for three rooms, one for himself: non-smoking, no Yoshis. He also asked that all five people have their clothes washed and dried for them while they slept.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and Mu Chi Room stayed in three separate rooms. They showered, finally removing the sweats, oils, and other bad things from their bodies. They dried themselves with the inn's white towels. Then, still wiped out, they passed out in the beds.

.

"Now what do we do?" Luigi asked. All four heroes were standing outside again, in the dream-world. All four were dressed in Luigi's outfit of green overalls against blue. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were all wearing green and blue.

"Now that we're back in Slumberland, we go find Wart," Mario explained. "We find his lair, and we stop him."

All four hopped into action. They ran across the long ledges of mushroom heads, colored orange with red circles, over light biege stems reaching over 100 feet. From the red and orange mushroom heads, they jumped to a waterfall, with brown logs continuously rolling down over the water. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy jumped into the water and reached a secret tunnel beyond.

"This will take us to Wart for sure," Mario said.

Jumping down into a lower room, they found a brown ground of dirt, brown walls, and: Wart! "Gaaah!" he yelled. "You found me in this world! No matter. Now I will crush you in yours!"

.

Luigi and Daisy woke up, and found Wart, alive and breathing, inside their room at the Neon Land inn.

"Gaaah!" Luigi yelled.

Soon enough, Mario knocked on the door. "Come in!" Luigi yelled. Mario opened the door. Mario and Peach now ran inside, to join Luigi and Daisy in running at Wart.

"What have you got that will stop me?" Wart screamed.

"Here, Wart!" Mario yelled. "Eat your vegetables!" So he threw a medium-sized veggie into Wart's open mouth.

"No! Noooo!" Wart yelled. He began to run around the room in circles frantically. It took a few moments for the running to stop, and he took a second to catch his breath. Then, it was back to fighting Mario and his friends inside the inn!

Spiders descended from the ceiling. They dropped from their webs, to land on the heads of the people, who ran away before that could happen. Many spiders were now walking around in circles across the ground. Mario and his friends continued to feel the chills of fright.

"Eat spider, frog!" Mario yelled, and he threw a spider at Wart, a spider that landed on the frog's belly and stung it.

"Nooo!" Wart yelled. One spider bite was not quite enough to kill him. But now the four adventurers knew their strategy.

"Let's take this fight outside!" Wart yelled. He ran, and ran, and leaped out the open window of the inn, taking him immediately to the outdoors. One by one, Mario and his friends jumped out the open window, to follow Wart. They all landed on the ground, with Wart several meters ahead of them, the people and monster surrounded on all sides by roads and buildings.

Mario would not let go of Wart. "Come back here!" Mario yelled, grabbing Wart by the tail.

"NOO!" Wart yelled, smacking Mario backward with one hand. Next, he threw Luigi at the wall of the inn. Luigi hit the wall, hurt, but far from dead. Wart picked up some veggies from the ground, and threw them at Peach and Daisy, who were struck and knocked back, hurt.

In no time at all, Wart had appeared to beat all four of them.

"All four of you couldn't stop me," Wart said. "Very well. If you still refuse to serve Tatanga, then your brains will all be adjusted, until you will serve him."

"Never!" Mario screamed.

"Sorry, Mario," Wart said. "It looks like you lose."

Four newcomers ran into the scene, running single file, from an open doorway. Two men and two women comprised this group of four, who were total strangers to Mario.

"Come on, gang!" Papa said. "Wart has come to this place . . . and there's nowhere we can't follow him!"

"Slow down, Papa," Mama said. "This is unknown territory."

"Slow down?" Lina asked. "We need to be speeding it up if those two children are to be saved!"

"I sense . . . Wart is not far," Imajin told his three friends. "Yet I somehow sense there are . . . others."

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy had no idea what was going on, as these four strangers approached Wart.

"Wart!" Papa screamed. "You have brought yourself into the world of the living . . . and here, we can fight you!"

Mario and his three friends did nothing but watch as this unfamiliar group of four heroes fought bravely against Wart. This was not a dream. Apparently, Wart had other enemies - four other heroes who would stop him.

Mama picked up a veggie from the ground, a white veggie with black leaves at the top, which appeared to be black grass before she picked it up. Mario would have never even noticed that it was there. She threw the veggie at Wart, immediately knocking him to his side. Mario, at his best, had not gotten him to his _side!_

"Eat your vegetables, Wart!" Papa yelled, and the other three laughed.

"Oh, I love you. My boyfriend is so funny!" Mama said, kissing Papa.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were still just sitting around, increasingly feeling useless.

"Here. I will help!" Lina said. She reached down to pick up some black grass, revealing a white veggie. She leaped up into the air, and glided ahead through it, for longer than Peach could, before throwing the veggie at Wart's mouth, hurting him again. Now Wart was sent backflipping, to land on his back, kicking and thrashing all limbs at once.

Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Daisy were still just sitting around, Luigi picking his nose, the four of them feeling increasingly like losers.

"Well . . . that's . . . that, I guess," Mario said. "If we're not around, these guys would have ended up doing it for us. Except . . . better."

Mama, Papa, Lina, and Imajin continued to jump and flip into action, bravely, selflessly, attracting the attention of pretty girls and newspaper reporters along the way. "Wow!" one mushroom-girl said. "And to think, I stayed at the inn that these four were near!"

"I don't think I can watch this any longer," Mario said, leading the sad walk away.

"NOOOO!" Wart yelled. "Nobody's EVER gotten past my Power Blast! How . . .?!"

Ka-boom! While Mario and his friends were walking away, an enormous red and yellow explosion went off. Once Wart was completely defeated, the four heroes courageously carried him away with them, and into an open white doorway.

Standing outside, in front of the inn at Neon Land, they saw that the threat of Wart was indeed over. The Metroids had been battled, and so had Wart, yet none of them had provided Mario with a way to Tatanga's ship. They had wanted to grab Wart's body while he was being beamed back up. Outside the inn was the perfect place to do it, too. Those four other heroes had taken that chance away from them.

Now what?

.

.

.

Mu Chi Room: a new character, to my knowledge. "Mushroom" and "chi" turned into "muchiroom", or Mu Chi Room.

Metroids are from Metroid, of course. Earlier it was Zelda references, and now it's Metroid. Remember that Doki Doki Panic, originally a game completely unrelated to Mario, had the Starman from Super Mario Bros. in it. The Legend of Zelda had a Magic Whistle that later went into Super Mario Bros. 3. I sense there was a deliberate plan to give Nintendo games a slight touch of each other.

MCR's tall hat: a reference to Lo Pan, villain of "Big Trouble in Little China".

The Dry Bones, from Super Mario Bros. 3, I tried to put into that "Night of the Living Dead" light with the enormous crowds of them.

"The Wizard of Oz", with the wicked witch's army of flying monkeys, continues to come up as inspiration. Army of flying Metroids. The scarecrows. The witch, Cackletta, from 2003's Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. Finally, the scene where Cackletta makes everyone sleepy, so that they will fight Wart, is similar to the Wizard of Oz, where they all are made to fall asleep. Wart's presence is kind of like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and the comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland" both.

The "Rabbits!" thing is from 1994 Game Boy Donkey Kong. That game had rabbits, trash can monsters, wire lines from which Mario swings, electronic things traveling across the wires - two elements later inserted into 2002's Super Mario Sunshine. One dream of mine involved a comic book based on that game, with a close-up of Mario, at a diagonal angle, as he yelled "Rabbits!", with a much larger panel depicting the animals coming at him. Another dream of mine had retroactively inserted the Rabbit Suit into Super Mario Bros. 3 my whole life. The Rabbit Suit.

Ninja Mario and Ninja Luigi are new power-ups. Only at certain areas, like bushes, can they blend and camouflage against their surroundings.

Peach and Daisy having fire-power has never really been done in the games yet. Thus, Peach's hair goes red, like it was throughout the 80's, Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3, 8-bit era. Her hair became blonde in the 16-bit era of the Super Nintendo, and her name became Peach in the 64-bit era.

From Doki Doki Panic comes: the Bob-Ombs, Ninjis, Shyguys, Snifits, Cobrats, Mouser, and Wart. Doki Doki Panic was a Japanese game for the Famicom Disk System - an add-on to the Famicom - which was known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in the USA. In that game, grass was black instead of red or green. Mama, Papa, Imajin, and Lina were the four heroes of that game.

I always found it funny how the entire canon of Doki Doki Panic became integrated into Mario, every single character except the four heroes. It's not like they replaced Wart with King Koopa or anything to make Super Mario Bros. 2. No, Wart remained with the label of a Mario villain, even in the American Mario 80's comic books by Valiant. So, a Mario/Doki Doki Panic crossover is long since coming. I briefly considered writing a whole crossover story, then decided to just have them make a guest appearance alongside Wart.


End file.
